Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part A

As opposed to my usual choices in reading where I choose a battle oriented plot, I decided to expand myself by trying out the chinese fairy tales. My plan is to read all of the fairy tales and hope to find one or two that I can use to either base my story off of, or expand upon in some way for my story in the future.

The fairy tale, "The Panther", reminds me a lot of Little Red Riding Hood. The main differences are the animal (panther as opposed to a wolf), and how the predator approaches eating the rest of the family members. I liked how the panther still dressed up as the mother, so that approach was similar to Little Red Riding Hood. The resolution of the story was pretty interesting too. The daughters were creative when designing every element of the panther's downfall. The dialogue between the daughters and panther was comical at some points too. Some of the reasons the panther gave as to why his features were different compared to the mother were pretty entertaining.

(Mani + Sin-Sin  --  tohu)
Source: Flickr

The story, "Why Dog and Cat are Enemies" is a really fun way of writing in my opinion. It gives an idea or stereotype that is commonly known today, (such as dogs and cats not getting along) and creates a story as to why that is the way it is. Although it isn't the true logical sequence as to why the things are the way they are, it is fun to read and would be enjoyable to try to find something similar and create my own reasoning for it. I will definitely look into this approach for a future story of mine. I thought it was interesting that the cat and dog started out as allies, but then the cat quickly betrayed the dog (which sounds like something one of my cats would do), leading to an understood feud between the two animals.

Bibliography: Chinese Fairy Tales, by Wilhelm