After all, the Vietnamese possess a rich and varied sense of humor. These amusing short stories often have a moral, though I suspect some were written for plain old fun. The second book, Vietnamese Folk Tales: Satire and Humor (1990), also edited by Huu Ngoc, concerns itself with humorous folk tales. (The tiger regains his dignity in a subsequent story titled "The Toad and the Rain," in which the cat takes part in a toad-led expedition to convince the Emperor of Heaven to end a punishing drought.)
The buffalo invasion 1997 skin#
Bits of burning straw stuck to his skin and left long black scorch marks.
The buffalo invasion 1997 free#
Eventually the ropes holding the tiger burned up, and the cat leapt free and dashed into the jungle. Water buffalo have never had upper teeth since that day. The water buffalo laughed so hard at the sight of this spectacle that he whacked his head against a rock and broke out all of his teeth. "There it is, my intelligence," shouted the peasant as the tiger roared in pain and rage. The peasant went to the village and returned with bundles of straw, which he piled around the tiger and set ablaze. The tiger agreed to this, and the peasant bound the tiger to a tree. When the tiger insisted, the peasant relented and said he would get his intelligence from the village, but that he would have to tie up the tiger as insurance against him eating his water buffalo. Besides, I have so little of it for myself that I can not impart any of it to you." Nobody ever brings it along with him when working in the field. But when the tiger asked, the peasant told him: "Excuse me, sir. I know only that he is in possession of a talisman called intelligence." So the tiger resolved to ask the peasant for some of his intelligence. Yet I can never free myself from his mastery. How does it come about that Man, this little and upright being without great strength, with no piercing sight and no sense of smell, manages to lead you and make you work for him, you who are ten times bigger and much more powerful than he?" The water buffalo replied: "To tell you the truth, I don't know. Hidden in the bushes, I have watched the curious spectacle of your toil. I have seen you every day without your seeing me. A tiger crept up to the water buffalo and said: "I don't come as an enemy. Once upon a time, a peasant was working in his rice field with his water buffalo, at a time when buffalo had sharp teeth like all the other beasts of the world. Consider the title story of the book, "The Peasant, the Buffalo, and the Tiger," which is also my personal favorite in this collection. Edited by Huu Ngoc and Hoa Mai, these age-old traditional stories star a fantastic cast of characters, ranging from evil genies to poor woodcutters, and explain how certain things came to be in the world. The first book, The Peasant, the Buffalo, and the Tiger: Vietnamese Legends and Tales (1997), is a collection of folk tales reminiscent of Grimm's Fairy Tales. That's the value of two new paperbacks from The Gioi Publishers of Hanoi, both of which offer a representative sample of Vietnamese folk tales and legends. In fact, learning the stories opens up a window into that country, allowing the outsider to understand and appreciate it in greater depth. After all, the people of every culture create myths, legends and folk tales to help explain the world around them, and the Vietnamese are no exception to this tradition. If you want to learn about the Vietnamese, it seems to me that there's no better way to do it than through the stories they tell.