Stupid idea to have 波霸奶茶 on the way back, again, so I’m up; might as well get in my problem with a bilingual children’s book with said title (subbed “The White Snake Saga/A Dragon Boat Festival Tale”) I read at a bookstore near Taipei station—then another, to clear it up, to no avail—which, as it happens is one of many takes on an ancient Chinese fairy tale: Xu-Xian already lives happily enough with his beautiful wife Lady White and her servant Little Green. Lady White suggests he open a pharmacy; the town falls ill and as their only supplier of the cure, they become rich. [There’s no hint of insider trading, at least not in the English version.] Xu-Xian goes to the local temple to thank the gods for his fortune, when the Buddhist monk Fa-Hai warns him that his wife and her servant are monsters. He’s given realgar to reveal their true forms.
Back home incredulous Xu-Xian uses it and they become a huge White snake and small Green one, respectively. He passes out, and comes to later to the familiar sights of Lady White and Little Green, who explain that he’s sick. Xu-Xian returns to the monk, who insists they are lying and offers to hide him in the temple.
Lady White storms the temple like in any good Shaw Bros. movie, demanding her husband, and rather unsubtly throws a flood at it, the water full of shrimp and crabs yelling “Yeh-ho, yeh-ho!” [The Chinese only had the single “Yeh-ho.”] Fa-Hai shrugs the waters off and they destroy the village of Zhenjiang instead.
God, in the singular, is quite irate with all the commotion and sends the wonderfully-named Thunder King and Lightning Queen to punish Lady White. Fa-Hai intervenes, persuades the all-knowing that because she’s with child to grant her a reprieve until it’s born …then bury her in the Gold Purple Bowl under Thunder Peak Pagoda.
Years later, Xu-Xian [the drawing has his faithful dog by his side, and it’s great, he’s got a old mustache and is smoking a pipe] and his son visit the pagoda to pray, and afterwards a cloud of smoke arises in the shape of a woman. Xu-Xian cries, is reminded of his time with Lady White, then realizes the secret of happiness and smiles—now I forget the exact order, as my RAM was pushed to the limits with the spelling of “Yeh-ho”, but it’s either critical to understanding the moral of the story and I failed miserably, or you, too, see why I’m expecting to be at a loss when explaining it to my child someday. He’s glad to have his memories, but not his wife by his side all this time, making new ones while living and raising their child together? Because she was not only hot (and came with a cute handmaiden), but an awesome snake-monster with cool powers?
Leave a Reply