Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part A

Two stories from this section stood out to me. The first was The Cave of the Beasts because of how awful the father was. He got the duck eggs for himself and his wife, but when his daughters ate them, he wanted to leave them to be eaten by wolves?! I think he sucks, and when the youngest daughters found all of the jewels, I was rally happy for them. I didn't like how he acted like he was grateful they were alive and then took all of the jewels back home. I think in my ideal story, the girls go back with the jewels and he is eaten by wolves. It's only fair.

The second story was one that I liked. The King of the Ants was a fun, short story that I thought was funny. The small people reminded me of Thumbellina (only even smaller!) which was a story I adored growing up. This is a story I would like to retell simply because I think there are a lot of fun and different possible outcomes! I was a little confused as to how the men were so tiny and why they went back into an ant hill? Maybe they rule over the ants and there are other tiny people somewhere? Why did no one really comment on the size difference between the small people and the scholar? Things I would definitely wants to address in my story.

(Cabinet Build Tiny People Little Helper on maxpixel)

Bibliography: King of the Ants and The Cave of the Beasts from The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).