Week 6 Storytelling: The Diary of Dschou Tschu

Dear Diary,Today, I got into another fight! And of course, I won. We were drinking beers at the tavern all night and some old man looked at me in an odd way from across the room, which I didn't like one bit, so I through my beer mug at him. It hit him right in the forehead and he came charging at me, throwing punches left and right. I easily picked him up by the collar of his shirt and took one swing at him, which knocked him straight out. Everyone at the bar was really upset that I hit the old guy so they were all crying and yelling, but no one kicked me out or anything. They were probably just overreacting but I knew it wasn't a big deal. I get into fights all the time... and at least I always win! The people in this town just don't appreciate me or my strength.

Dear Diary,
Tonight, as I was walking home from drinking at the tavern, there was a man crying on my doorstep. I was in a good mood so I continued singing loudly and flinging my sword around until I was close enough to him that I could not bear his foolish crying anymore. So I asked him who he was and he told me that he was saddened because of the people's distress. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I laughed in his face and told him of the abundant harvest and how happily people lived in our village. He then told me that the people claimed there were three evils in the land: the dragon (understandably scary), the tiger (which didn't really seem all that scary to me), and me (which is ridiculous). He told me I had to take care of all three evils and then left... I know people here think poorly of me and that I am always causing fights, but I had no idea they considered me the third evil of the land... I must leave tomorrow morning to kill both of these monsters and then I should exile myself to a far away land where I can never bother anyone again.

 (The evil tiger in his cave)

Dear Diary,
I am briefly pausing on my journey to write that I have killed the tiger. I hunted him out of his cave and fought his savage claws and teeth before I threw his neck to the ground with my left hand and beat him with my right. He died before me and I carried him home on my back to show the people that the tiger is no more. Now I am about to embark on the second part of my journey, which is killing the dragon. I am more nervous about this part of my commission.

Dear Diary,
I have slain the dragon. I walked on the long bridge and dived into the water in which I encountered the dragon sleeping peacefully. I grabbed him by the neck with my mighty hands and we wrestled beneath the water for some time, both taking turns with the upper hand. Eventually, the dragon's strength began to fade and he realized he was no match for me and my own supernatural strength. The dragon flapped his wings desperately in a last attempt to get away, which sounded like the hooves of a thousand horses galloping around me. Finally, I cut the dragons head off and rose from the waves out of the water that was turning red with the dragon's blood. I then took the dragon's head, along with the tiger, to the man and told him that I had accomplished what he asked of me. He then told me to travel far from here and leave him to rule the people. This saddened me because I have lived in my village my entire life, but I knew I had to do it.

 (The evil dragon that Dschou Tschu killed)

Dear Diary,
Now I am sitting on a rock, overlooking the ocean at sunset, writing this and deciding where to travel next. I suppose I will wander until I find a country that will allow me to use my strength to fight as a soldier for the people. I will use my talents for good rather than for my own enjoyment now. And perhaps people will like me and I will never be banished again. I will write again when I have enlisted as a soldier and fought my first battle.

Author's Note:
For this story, I kept the entire plot the same but focused on telling the tale from the perspective of Dschou Tschu himself, rather than the mandarin. As I was reading the source story, I imagined Dscou Tschu as a brute who is not very smart and had no idea that the people disliked him so much for his eagerness to start fights and cause trouble. I wanted to highlight how he must have felt hearing the news of the evils and his adventures during the battles he fought and it made me laugh to picture him sitting down to journal the events that unfolded each time. I have never written in this style before and it was fun to try something new. However, it was difficult for me to decide what language style was best since it needed to sound personal because it was a diary entry, but I wanted it to be understandable and still convey the story appropriately. So I settled on a slightly modern take and I am not yet sure if it worked. Another thing I had difficulty with was finding images to illustrate this story because there were none available of the actual fights with the tiger and dragon. Regardless, I liked writing this piece and hope it was enjoyable to read!

Bibliography:
The Chinese Fairy Tales are a selection of stories from Wilhem's Chinese Fairy Book.

Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part B

The Little Hunting Dog

• A scholar lived in a Buddhist temple where little knights invaded and hunted, but one day they left a small dog that the scholar kept and loved as his own
• One morning, he woke up to the dog being pressed flat as paper and dead

Fox-Fire

• A farmer-boy stumbled upon a fox breathing fire to the moon in preparing the elixir of life so the farmer snatched it and swallowed it himself
• He was able to see ghosts and demons, perform many miracles, and use his talents with the spirit-world until the fox stole it back from him one day
• Could expand on the details of one of the specific miracles performed or make him also a fox

The Talking Silver Foxes

• The talking foxes sat on the side of a mountain and tease passersby until one day, the Farmer Wang, was surprised by a fox and cracked it with his ox-whip
• A girl in the village became possessed and the foxes said they would not pray to the god of war or any other god because they only feared Wang, who afterwards sent the spirit fleeing
• An archer also came across a fox and shot it with his bow, skinned it, and sold it

Retribution

• One day old Wang accidentally pushed a water-carrier down a terrace, where he died, and left the corpse there for the town to discover
• Many days later, the water-carrier returned as the neighbor's baby and grew up, accidentally throwing a stone at some pigeons but hitting Wang, so the scene repeated itself
• Could rewrite the story so that the water-carrier returning was indeed for retribution and the character of Ma was the only one who could see him, finding himself crazy

The Night on the Battlefield

• A merchant stumbled upon an inn during a storm where he found a room and watched a procession and hearty dinner of many soldiers and a general
• When the general retired to his room, his aid helped him take his head, arms, legs, and torso apart so that he could rest
• The merchant was horrified and left the inn for another, finding out that the inn which he had first stayed was on an old battlefield and strange things happened in the night
• Could write a scary story and make other creepy things happen to the merchant during his stay

(Inn on the Haunted Battlefield at Night)

The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away

• A storm stole a young maiden away from her home and to an incredibly tall pagoda, where she was doted on hand and foot by a young man asking her to marry him
• She denied every day and then he left, but one day he left the door open and she saw that he was a hideous ogre when he flew down to earth and she was terrified
• Her brother heard of her up there, hid in wait for the "young man", and threw an axe into his arm to scare him off and save his sister
• Could incorporate some of Rapunzel's tale, with her being kept away

The Flying Ogre

• A monk saw a woman running quickly toward him, asking him to hide her until he saw a man riding an armored horse who explained she was a terrible flying ogre and he needed to kill her

The Sorceror of the White Lotus Lodge

• A sorcerer made his pupils watch a small ship and candle while he was away and they failed, so his ship capsized and he had to walk in the dark
• He turned one pupil into a pig so a thousand soldiers arrested him and his family and as they travelled to the castle, they encountered a giant who ate the sorcerer and his wife and son
• Could expand on the tasks that the sorcerer made his pupils do while he was away

 The Three Evils

• A mandarin moved to a village and was told there were three evils- a terrible dragon, a tiger lurking in the hills, and Dschou Tschu who was wild, devilish, and always starting brawls
• Dschou Tschu was enlisted to take care of all three evils so he killed both the dragon and tiger and then exiled himself (before killing himself) to rid the village of all three
• Could rewrite the story from Dschou Tschu's point of view with how hurt his feelings are that the village thinks so lowly of him

How the River God's Wedding Was Broken Off

• Si-Men came to govern the Yellow River people where there was a custom of offering a river-bride, chosen by who's family could not pay, to the river-god every year
• Si-Men carefully sent several witches to beckon the god at the next wedding and none came back, so all fearfully vowed to put an end to the tradition
• Could add to the story that Si-Men actually posed as the bride to put an end to the river-god, who unknowingly still married Si-Men

Yang Gui Fe 

• Yang Gui Fe was the emperor's favorite wife, but she and her cousin took advantage and eventually caused the emperor to be driven from the country
• His soldiers mutinied and killed both Yang Gui Fe and her cousin and she departed to a fairy land as a blessed spirit, which she was before meeting the emperor
• A magician searched for her and found her so she gave him her ring to give to the emperor and told him she would return in 12 years time and not to weep too greatly

Bibliography:
The Chinese Fairy Tales are a selection of stories from Wilhem's Chinese Fairy Book.

Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part A

The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck

•  A princess with ill luck married a beggar with good luck in hopes of one day finding splendor
•  He left to find his fortune and returned after 18 years an emperor, so they lived happily for 18 days until the wife died while the husband lived on many years

The Cave of the Beasts

• A father was furious with his wife for feeding their daughters the duck eggs he found so he took two of them out to the forest and left them there
• They stumbled upon a cave full of treasures and jems belonging to a fox and wolf, so they trapped them in the kettle and took all of the treasures for themselves
• Could change the story so that the fox or the wolf escaped and actually captured the girls, but then realized they were friendly and frightened and they all live together

The Panther

• A panther devoured a mother and son and then, wearing her clothing, posed as the mother to the two daughters left at home
• They managed to scare the panther away for a little while but were on their doorstep crying for their mother and brother
• A needle-vender, a scorpion-catcher, an egg-seller, a turtle dealer, and a man selling clubs all stopped by and gave the girls a gift of each of their trade to scare the panther off with
• Could rewrite the story so that only one of the gifts was given to the girls and they had to fight the panther off with that alone

Why Dog and Cat are Enemies

• A man and wife lost their lucky ring and all of their wealth so the cat and dog planned and ventured to acquire the ring and bring it back home
• After they got the ring back, the cat beat the dog back to the house because it was able to run over the roof and the cat was rewarded for the ring while the dog was beaten for not assisting

Yang Oerlang

• Oerlang, a shapeshifter, was fetching his mother water when he returned to her dead corpse and he realized that her magic powers had failed her and the sunlight had killed her
• Oerlang avenged her death by killing 9 of the 10 suns but he did not kill the last one so that the earth could live and he was honored as a god after
• It would be interesting to change the story so that Oerlang did kill all of the suns and the world went into complete darkness

The Lady of the Moon

• Hou I was given an herb of immortality and his wife ate some of it when he was not home, floated up to the clouds, and became the Lady of the Moon in the castle there
• The emperor and two sorcerers created a bridge to the moon and saw the castle of the lady, which was filled with beautiful music that the emperor had transcribed when he returned to earth  

The Girl with the Horse's Head or the Silkworm Goddess

• A girl vowed to marry her horse if it could return her father to her from a long journey and when it did, she and her father instead slew the horse and hung the hide up
• One day, the hide swallowed the girl and carried her to a tree where she became wrapped in a cocoon and spun beautiful silk
• Could change the story so that she actually did have to marry the horse and she falls in love with him and they live happily ever after

(Girl grooming her horse as she misses her father) 

The God of War

• Guan Yu was a faithful and brilliant warrior who fought the evil Tsau Tsau but was caught into an ambush with his son where they were both slain
• He visited a monk and asked for his head to be restored, but the monk answered that it would not be fair to all those that Guan Yu had killed to not have their own heads restored.
• Afterwards, he became very spiritually active and worshipped as the God of War

The Miserly Farmer

• A bonze asked a farmer for a pear but was not given one, so an artisan bought one for him
• He ate the pear and planted it, watered it, and it grew into a magnificent tree from which he passed out many pears 
• The farmer realized after the bonze left that the pears he passed out had actually been his all along and the tree came from the wooden axle of his cart, but the bonze was nowhere to be found for him to confront him

The King of the Ants 

• A scholar lived in a haunted house where a hundred knights the size of ants galloped in to hunt with horses the size of flies
• They prepared a beautiful banquet, sang, and danced until the small knight in the scarlet hat made fun of his kingly status as compared to the scholar's poor status, so the scholar shooed them out and smoked them out of the ants' nest
• It would be fun to write more from the perspective of everyday life and struggles of the small knights in their own world and how it differs from the regular, life-sized world

Bibliography:
The Chinese Fairy Tales are a selection of stories from Wilhem's Chinese Fairy Book.