Week 6 Storytelling: Where Do I Belong

(flickr)

Once upon a time there lived a little ape. He was not just like any ape in jungle. He was unique and very special. He lived on an island very far east and close by to the Great Sea. The island that he lived on was called Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. In fact, it was on the main rock mountain of the island that this special little ape was born. The main thing that made this little guy so unique was the fact that he was literally hatched form an egg.

As a young ape he was so full of life. He spent everyday enjoying himself and playing around on the mountain tops. His favorite things to do included rolling down the mountains and chasing all of the tropical birds and butterflies that flew around the jungle. He thought he was on top of the world. He grew up alone in the jungle but he loved his life there.

He didn’t realize he was different until he met some other apes on the island and came to find out that they were not born from eggs. He suddenly felt very ashamed of himself and was embarrassed that he was not like everyone else. He struggled with the fact that he felt like he did not fit in with the rest of the apes. He would try to hang out with them, but he always felt judged and unwanted.

One day all of the young apes were spending time with their mothers, and that was the moment he decided to give up trying to fit in because he did not have a mother. All he had was a lonely cracked egg shell. That’s when he made the decision to go away and go back to his hill. This ape was done trying to be like the other apes in the jungle. However, now that he was alone again he still was not happy, but he did not know why.

A couple of weeks went by, then one day he had a visitor. One of the other apes had come looking for him. He said that they had all noticed his absence and they missed him and they wanted him to come home. He was so shocked by this! He had never been missed before nor had ever though of a place as home. He immediately hugged the other ape and agree to go back down the mountain with him.

Authors Note: I wrote this story to give a deeper explanation of how life was like growing up for the ape in the story the Handsome King of the Apes. I thought the soon to be king needed to be understood a little bit better. 

Bibliography: This story is based on the story Handsome King of the Apes. This story is part of the The Monkey King unit. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Week 6 Reading Diary, Continued: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung

For the second part of my reading diary I decided to read about Asian mythology. I read The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). Below of the two stories from my reading that I found to be the best.

Handsome King of the Apes: I enjoyed this story because it shows how the monkey came to be and his beginning. The story begins by being extremely detailed and allows the reader to really envision the island and what it is like. The the story takes an interesting story when it says that the ape was hatched from an egg. Obviously I was very surprised by this because I have never heard of such a thing. I liked that even though this ape was special that he still got along well with the other tribe of apes. I feel like this story continues on with a theme I’ve been reading in stories where there is some sort of competition between animals to decide who becomes king.

(the waterfall)

The Great Sea: this story jumps forward the ape who was hatched from an egg already became king and was now respected. I found myself wondering what it was like when he first became king and how he coped with that new responsibility. I think overall this was a very good story and I think it was told in a very detailed way.

Week 6 Reading Diary: Brer Rabbit

For this reading diary I decided to focus on Brer Rabbit. Joel Chandler Harris's series of books of Brer Rabbit tales (almost two hundred stories in total) is one of the most important resources we have for African-American folklore study. For my diary I chose two stories that I found to be the most interesting.

(illustration by A. B. Frost)

Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace: all of the stories of Brer Rabbit were extremely difficult to understand. I found myself reading this story out loud multiples times to still just barely grasp the meaning. I found this one to be a little more interesting than the rest of the stories because it involved a wide variety of characters, and once again they were animals. I have established many times in the blog that I immediately like a blog more because it includes animals. Once again this statement in true here. I really enjoyed Mr. Possum because I feel like he is very kind, as well as being grounded and thoughtful.

A Story about the Little Rabbits: once again I could barely understand this story because of the language and the way that it was translated. However, overall it was a very good story about cute little rabbits so that made the struggle of reading it much more worthy. I do not think that I will continue to read these stories because I am not able to get as much out of them as I would hope because of the difficulties of reading. The story was very unique in the way it was written.