Week Seven: Reading Diary

Part A: This Tibetan Folktales unit was very interesting and entertaining to read. At the top of each story was a Tibetan proverb, but that sometimes didn't make as much sense by itself, but aided in the stories overall theme and moral. These morals were of truth, honesty and friendship. Constant themes throughout these stories included good and evil, punishing tricksters and rewarding honest people. These stories reminded me a lot of the Japanese fairytales and Aesop's fables. All had similar ideas and concepts of how truth and good intentions were at the core of all good people or animals. In The Cony Who Got Into Bad Company, the Cony and the Rat stole from an honest Lama and in the end, they were punished and made to be a fool. The overall moral was that you are who you hang out with and your reputation can be stained because of their actions. I enjoyed reading How the Fox Fell a Victim to His Own Deceit, which told the story of a fox who tried to pit a cow and a tiger against each other, only to have them both find out and attack him instead. This idea of dishonesty and evil intentions is present in many of the stories. It was rather funny in Covetousness, as three robbers plotted to poison four other robbers with food and the four other robbers plotted to poison the three with water. In the end they all died because of their plots.

Part B: These stories followed the same ideas and plots as the first party. All had magical animals or gods that helped the honest win and the evil lose. In The Golden Squash, a good neighbor rescued a hurt bird and in return received a magical seed that grew a gold squash. The jealous neighbor injured another bird in hopes of receiving the same treatment, instead his seed grew an evil pumpkin with a man inside and he ended up dying for his dishonesty. Additionally, in The Man and the Monkeys, a monkey saved the man from drowning and in return the man got annoyed by the monkeys' noise and shook the trees killing all the monkeys. The Monkey god was unhappy and turned himself into a snake, killing the man.

All of these stories featured heavy themes of right and wrong, ending in a lot of deaths and killings to bring justice to the situation. Aside from the beginning proverb that set the setting of the story, most of the stories started with "Long, long ago..." or "Once upon a time…" which I thought was really interesting. It's a classic start and every single one followed that pattern. I think these folktales are close to a lot of Aesop's fables and stories.