{"id":3472,"date":"2015-04-12T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=3472"},"modified":"2015-04-11T09:51:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T16:51:16","slug":"as-a-child-i-read-fairy-tales-he-read-outlaws-of-the-marsh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/as-a-child-i-read-fairy-tales-he-read-outlaws-of-the-marsh\/","title":{"rendered":"As a Child, I Read Fairy Tales; He Read “Outlaws of the Marsh.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>

image by TZA, flickr creative commons<\/p><\/div>\n

In my imagination, the inside of my brain is this complicated structure I\u2019ve built up over the years. Some of its floors, hallways, and towers are basically the same as in everyone else\u2019s brains. The rest are my own, painstakingly constructed and connected, they\u2019re based on everything I\u2019ve ever thought, seen, heard, experienced, or read.<\/p>\n

If you and I have read many of the same books, then the portions of our brain-edifices that store those stories might look similar\u2014that is, if we filed the stories in the same places.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/a>

Jack and Jill by Dorothy M. Wheeler, c. 1920<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of the earliest stories I remember were the short-short stories found in nursery rhymes: Jack and Jill<\/em>, Humpty Dumpty<\/em>, and Little Bo Peep<\/em> among others.<\/p>\n

Next came the simple stories for young children that, strangely, all had in common the number three: Three Little Pigs<\/em>, The Three Billy Goats Gruff<\/em>, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t long before I heard and later read what for me were the stories at the heart of children\u2019s literature: fairy tales.<\/p>\n

\n

Little Red Riding Hood<\/p>\n

Hansel and Gretel
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Cinderella<\/p>\n

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/p>\n

Rapunzel<\/p>\n

The Princess and the Pea<\/p>\n

Jack and the Beanstalk<\/p>\n

Sleeping Beauty<\/p>\n

Beauty and the Beast<\/p>\n

Puss in Boots<\/p>\n

The Emperor\u2019s New Clothes<\/p>\n

The Frog Prince<\/p>\n

The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and<\/p>\n

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (one of my favorites because the illustrations in my book were so beautiful).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Alice_in_Wonderland<\/a><\/p>\n

Later, I read longer stories. You may have read many of the same ones:<\/p>\n

\n

The Three Musketeers<\/p>\n

Treasure Island<\/p>\n

Alice in Wonderland<\/p>\n

Heidi<\/p>\n

Kidnapped<\/p>\n

Little Women<\/p>\n

Black Beauty<\/p>\n

Robin Hood<\/p>\n

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer<\/p>\n

The Wizard of Oz<\/p>\n

King Arthur and His Knights<\/p>\n

The Secret Garden<\/p>\n

Peter Pan<\/p>\n

Little House in the Big Woods<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then I married someone who had built an entirely different story-edifice in his brain. I can\u2019t tell you everything my husband, Eugene, read or didn\u2019t read. But I do know that for the first ten years of his life, the reading material for a Chinese boy, living in China and surrounded by war, was totally different.<\/p>\n

Despite the war, Eugene was told many Chinese fables, folktales, and stories taken from classical Chinese literature. If you\u2019re interested in Chinese folktales, here\u2019s a collection<\/a> in English. Be sure to read \u201cThe Widow and Her Son\u201d on page 22. It\u2019s a touching story that is 2000 years old.<\/p>\n

During the Japanese occupation of China, my mother-in-law made up for the scarcity of children\u2019s books by reading to her young children from these two classics almost as soon as they could talk:<\/p>\n

Outlaws of the Marsh<\/a><\/em> and<\/p>\n

Romance of the Three Kingdoms<\/a><\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re seriously interested in China, you should read both of them. I recommend starting with Outlaws of the Marsh<\/em> (also called Water Margins<\/em>), a fictitious story based on actual events in the twelfth century. It\u2019s more fun, and even though it\u2019s 1605 pages long in my translation, you don\u2019t need to read all of it to have a good experience.<\/p>\n

\"Outlaws<\/a>The outlaws of the title are a delightful mix of heroes, villains, and buffoons who have banded together to escape capture. They scheme, murder, get drunk, fall in love, and fight for honor and justice.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a comment from the review of Outlaws of the Marsh<\/em> on Amazon by Gregory S. Combs: \u201cIf you read one saga in your life, you would die happy having read Outlaws of the Marsh<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Romance<\/a>Romance of the Three Kingdoms <\/em>is more serious. It tells of a period in Chinese history in which the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- A.D. 220) was on the verge of collapse. The three heroes and later their children are brave and clever. They also have their faults. My favorite character is Zhuge Liang, a brilliant military tactician.<\/p>\n

Romance of the Three Kingdoms <\/em>begins with the following comment: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.”<\/p>\n

Did you read many of the same stories I did when you were growing up?<\/p>\n

Do you have a friend or spouse whose reading history is different from yours? If so, how does it impact your relationship and communication?<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In my imagination, the inside of my brain is this complicated structure I\u2019ve built up over the years. Some of its floors, hallways, and towers are basically the same as in everyone else\u2019s brains. The rest are my own, painstakingly constructed and connected, they\u2019re based on everything I\u2019ve ever thought, seen, heard, experienced, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[743,13,29],"tags":[749,745,750,752,389,747,748,744,746,753,754,751],"class_list":["post-3472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-china","category-culture","tag-alice-in-wonderland","tag-books-read-in-childhood","tag-chapter-books-for-children","tag-chinese-folktales","tag-cultural-differences","tag-fairy-tales","tag-jack-and-jill","tag-memory-and-brain-structure","tag-nursery-rhymes","tag-outlaws-of-the-marsh","tag-romance-of-the-three-kingdoms","tag-spouse-read-different-stories-in-childhoodstories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-U0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11027,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/vanuatu\/when-something-new-comes-into-my-life-i-look-for-a-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":3472,"position":0},"title":"When Something New Comes into My Life, I Look for a Book","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"September 8, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The something new I\u2019m talking about is something that's more than a simple fact I can google. 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