1
50
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/0b20e5b4b598c182643bf616e33f8c30.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=u74B7yDahFLYmntq96wTt4zg5p2r5FTrKFeHa8NbkU1Fsiih5iuSUP2zTUvi88Zz8XHvuzhCtzFwM6M8SrSLcDQOHZ2cRyMIPUTfQ%7EwNZkaVm%7E77zn%7EwrtqdMHLuv4lL0XShksPrkoKHa0dlAJQoEhY3cA0ohpdmDSuHFc2Zn5pqdQkizij7F6qDcZpACPamqbZCciYLoE8eFNa9JJPlcuqDTM82xqXb%7E1pM0fLdEQ-jNhZdyVNVM6EozCR6z2K6LCpzkkFY1msm3BkG55lr2JmKjDYs2aKyMrQamFnseZTUBYLCY9LEDry7G3DFSa5lWQugS0NStWa3HvVBSh2weQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 6 (Formation of Vietnam)
R:
But surprisingly, none of you picked the Lac Long Quan Au Co story. That is the main
story about . . . Very important story in our history.
R:
Something . . . with real power.
R:
It a part of our history, called . . . the word in Vietnam called Con Rong, Chau Tien. This
mean Children of the Dragon and Grandchildren of Fairy. So that the Vietnamese is proud of that
heritage which is son of the dragon and grandson of fairy. So the story go like this, Lac Long
Quan is one of the son of the dragon from East Sea coming to the north. And met a lady which is
the daughter of fairy of the mountain. So they got married. After that the Au Co, which is the
name of the daughter of the fairy, not give birth, she laid a hundred eggs.
Moderator: She’s a very fertile woman.
R:
She laid eggs that hatch into a hundred sons. This is just a story, a hundred son.
R:
It’s like the God of the Mountain and God of the Sea.
R:
Then after they live with each other for a while, Lac Long Quan said to Au Co, “I am the
son of the dragon, we live in the sea. You are the daughter of the fairy, you are the mountain. We
cannot live long together. So why don’t we divide it? I take 50 sons going down to the sea. You
take 50 sons, go to the mountain.” So they separated. And 50 children . . . however when we
separate, but we help each other. If there is any problem we will help each other. So the 50 son
go with Lac Long Quan, that make the Vietnamese today.
R:
I think because Vietnam was surrounded by the sea, so that’s why they . . .
R:
I think the story . . . I mean today, a lot of people explain the story the way how our
ancestors tell the story.
Moderator: There’s 50 sons up north and 50 sons in the south. So 50 sons in the mountains, and
50 sons in the sea.
R:
The 50 sons follow the father, make the country, we call Van Lang. And there are a lot of
stories relating to those dynasty called Van Lang. Eighteen kings Van Lang. Many stories like
banh chung, which is we make the rice cake, and the story how we eat the petal . . . the Asian,
we eat the leaves and the...
R:
The beetle juice.
R:
Yeah, yeah, beetle. So many story relating to that 18 kings we call Van Lang. That is the
pre-date to An Duong Vuong which is the story my wife said. So that is pre-date to that history.
R:
This one is the 18 one also the princess . . .
R:
Yeah, that is one of the story within the dynasty of 18 kings. However, the people today,
they can explain the story the way how people back then think, and create that story for us. They
think that there are many tribe back then. They live like a tribe, like here the Indians. They live
by tribe. So they stand for a hundred tribes, different tribes.
�R:
So that’s how they put the whole Vietnam.
R:
In the northern part of Vietnam, so a hundred tribe just out of the wood, hundred, many.
Just mean many, that’s all. It doesn’t mean a hundred, but mean many. Many tribes come
together living in that area. Some from the sea coming up, some from the mountain coming
down. But interesting thing is they explain that because of the people from the sea follow the
father, which is the father is the head of the household. While the mother is a different type of
tribe, what do you call that?
R:
The mountain . . .
Moderator: The mother is matriarch, and the father is the patriarch.
R:
Yeah, matriarch, exactly.
Moderator: That explains why there’s certain tribes.
R:
Oh, your dragon grandma.
Moderator: On my father’s side Chinese from Southern Guangzhou, they moved to Burma. And
so there is the matriarch. And when I met her after my father died, she actually literally sat on a
wooden dragon chair, as the matriarch to preside over. So I didn’t know that, I didn’t know about
them until I went to the memorial.
R:
You could be a princess.
R:
I thought that, when I went to Vietnam just in October, then I note that the women, they
like the head of the house. When they talk, the husband has to listen to them. Even they get
married, they choose the husband, not the husband choose them. Interesting, I’ve talked to them,
because we sat together, and they’re saying, you know, and they work. They take care of the
kids. They take care of the household. They do everything. And I say, “And what about
husband?” Still today.
R:
Today, even you go to the northern part of Vietnam in the mountain area, they still have
the . . .
R:
Mother is the head of the house and they do a lot of things. The husband doesn’t know a
thing.
R:
I don't know. The man is not doing anything.
R:
They don’t have to do anything.
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So is the mountain the matriarch or the . . .
R:
The mountain is the matriarch. Yeah. Like the Hmong people. All of us know that story,
maybe not new so much. But this one here, everyone knows.
R:
What is the title of the story?
�R:
Children of the Dragon, and Grandchildren of the Fairy. Con Rong, Chau Tien.
R:
Wow! That’s amazing.
Moderator: And so they don’t understand . . . I learned that even though there’s different
countries, the sea communities are more similar than the mountain communities. That ethnically,
you could be ethnically—it doesn’t happen in Laos because we’re land-locked, but if you do
Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, the people from the coast are more similar than
the people from the mountains are more similar. Because there’s a big divide between the
mountains. The culture doesn’t travel over the mountain. Whereas with the seafarers, they would
go from one island to another island. They would intermarry and then that’s where they get the
mixing or the blending of the different tribes. So you have very similar like my dad’s ethnic
Chinese, Burmese, but married to a Laos-Thai woman. But it’s all mountain. They were all
mountain people. Versus the people from the Philippines and Indonesians, they are more similar.
R:
So the mountain people were more isolated?
Moderator: Mm-hmm, they were isolated just by geography, that the culture is more
mountainous. Mountain people versus sea people.
R:
That’s so interesting.
Commented [C1]: Above story? Not sure about this /
the above story
Commented [C2]: Part of story?
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnamese focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about the son of the dagon and the grandson of the fairy. Included in the document are comments left by transcript reviewers.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
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application/pdf; 6 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Vietnamese Focus Group, story 6 (Formation of Vietnam, unsure of this one).pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/76f06f7fdf29373d038107602bcffa97.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=KEY6C5MsqSWzGU70C0qB10FZKtAl72gf0x5cdfVwl-yghsJXwwQy0TLk0iIBTkHu5MdKM0BfZnd8V-IYHXH8UBCNzeLiF-xtlMqnoybrjQ4p3CUZ5y4n4ao5Ec5Asjzaa429n7cvk9rF01z36o-hEto7xAJtLFX1vLfxzgg4SrU4wrPtLcjObv-rsuDJk4jeY9enkWNLHIMVuaoMRut8B8bucVlA9zFJmyWtBS%7EhpciTM3vMfS8QYYtJaYp2oSX63uRUWKPuVIkFQXseSkicmuwTDwiEuMHCaWnzYF6OrWtvHeIdy1vnfKQ5PRPmChw9N-Q45XPvRc9jDvkXq4j6jQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8521a920596082af1960906ff3f13bd2
PDF Text
Text
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 5
R:
So we both have the story together, and this was something that we like. It’s a legend,
Vietnamese long time ago, back then there’s a king named An Duong Vuong. I will show you all
the names later. And actually, my husband will tell the story, not me. We happy now. Okay, now
you start, honey.
R:
I think the story has been passed down for a long, long time, many generations. This is
one of them. I think has some meaning, after the story I will talk a little bit about that. King An
Duong Vuong, he had a dream to build a city in the shape of a . . .
R:
Kingdom.
R:
No, it’s a type of shell.
R:
A seashell.
Moderator: Like a conch?
R:
That’s right.
R:
You only can go in by one way to get inside, like a spiral to come in. But during the time
he tried to build up the city, the wall keep coming down all the time. After he build it up, the next
day it collapse. He build it again, it keep collapse. So one day the God, the turtle, we call Kim
Qui, is the God of the Turtle, appear and give him one of his claw and tell the king to use that to
make the trigger for the crossbow. As soon as he make that he can find one arrow, it kill a
thousand of enemies. So that is the magic of the trigger using his claw. So the neighbor, one of
the country next to An Duong Vuong, which is called Au Lac at the time. Trieu Da is the king of
another country next to it, he want to take over Au Lac. His strategy is have his son to marry the
daughter of An Duong Vuong. The prince, his name is Trong Thuy, married the princess, which
is the daughter of An Duong Vuong. So they both happy, however Trong Thuy want to know the
secret of how he defend his city. And no one can overcome it or defeat it. My Chau is his wife
tell him the story.
R:
She showed him the crossbow.
R:
She showed him the trigger and the crossbow. So Trong Thuy asked other people to make
an imitate one, and put that into the crossbow, and he took the real one.
R:
This is drama.
R:
That’s why I like it. Tell me more.
R:
And then he came back home.
R:
But before he came back home, he told his wife . . . is that the one thing about the coat?
R:
He came home. And his father’s armies started to surround the city of An Duong Vuong.
An Duong Vuong no worry, because he have crossbow, he can kill anybody. So he just naive.
�R:
No, no, but you forgot one thing. Before Trong Thuy, the husband, leaving his wife and
he said that, “If anything happen to you, then wear a coat with fur. It’s made by swan feather.”
R:
is.
Swan feather. Then just pull the feather and put along the way, so he can find where she
R:
Marking the way wherever she goes, so he can trace her.
R:
That is one of the thing I forgot to mention. When the army of Trieu Da has surrounded
the city, so An Duong Vuong start to take the crossbow out and using it. It not effect anymore,
because no more magic trigger. So he gets surround and he had to find a way to escape. And he
take his horse with the daughter in the back. And the daughter do what her husband tell her to do.
She start to mark the way.
Moderator: Did you get that? The son told that if anything were to happen—son-in-law said to
his wife that wear a coat of swan feathers. So I can find you.
R:
So they can trace her.
R:
Actually, he gave her the coat.
Moderator: Oh, he gave her the coat, the swan feather coat.
R:
So because of that trail there, he’d be able to find An Duong Vuong. And at the time he
had caught the Kim Qui, the God of the Turtle coming up and say, “Your enemy riding on your
back.” Which is his daughter. So that is a sad story is he killed the daughter.
Moderator: Who killed the daughter?
R:
The father because . . .
R:
The king.
R:
This is terrible.
R:
And then they put her onto the well. And then when her husband came to that well, she
had already died. So he mourn her over there. I think later people worship her on that well there.
R:
Oh wow!
R:
Actually, now today, they found the city, the . . .
Moderator: The spiraling shell city?
R:
ago.
Yeah. So it’s really true. They found the foundation. They just found that a few years
Moderator: So it was a legend, that there was a kingdom. And he wanted to build a spiraling city
in the shape of a shell, but he couldn’t do it because the walls kept on falling. Then this magical
turtle gave him . . .
R:
How old is the wall?
�R:
This one must be about more than 2,000 years, because we have a history Trieu Da is one
of the king took over this An Duong Vuong. So in our history matching with the Chinese history,
matching back to the date around hundred years before Christ. Around then. And then because of
the history, I mean because of the excavation recently, they found the foundation. So it does have
something . . .
Moderator: They have a new technology now with . . . Have you read about the Angkor Wat?
How they now have been able to map the underground, so it’s actually larger than the perimeter
now.
R:
Like laser . . .
Moderator: It’s 3,000 times larger than what it is, because they were able to take a computer
projection of the layering of the city. So I wonder if they used the same computer software to
look at the foundation. That’s how they’re now doing archaeology is to look at based on these
computer projections.
R:
How long ago?
Moderator: That one was this past year that they found . . .
R:
Two years I think.
R:
And what is the moral of the story?
R:
This one here? Just a legend. It’s not a moral.
R:
It’s a legend.
R:
Legend, not real.
R:
Well, it has been tell the story like that for many years.
Moderator: Is there a statue of her now?
R:
There is a place, I don’t know what village, but they still worship her with a temple.
R:
And I think that they have a temple of An Duong Vuong too. When we went to Vietnam,
we want to see that place but we couldn’t have chance to see it.
R:
That’s great.
R:
We saw so many interesting in my country. When we went there we see, “Oh my gosh,
there’s a place here from history.”
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnamese focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about a King Duong Vuong.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 3 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 5.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/9b61537806b64efea2c13486c56b9f21.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=vbD5bjhqL8mhje7rfxrBBsLm4CbRmOjw%7EZU5%7Ei9kxrpw7MtotMtUxaGgtfh8wKLUSj4uK9NjgxA2jzXxuaHbyrfyIWaZ3PiIusbSe1C6D6pzktL09QeK8%7EAHgGgVzHxC6c%7EIalmyzL-dC6oGO2Y3nWX8mF%7E4nVE69zAPvazh-9Y3sXyNECq4ib6hfUY7LL3LDBxgoqmUlhUYTJlWp7Cra7FxusUCDPAA8vkrph6mq%7Ei2ZrgcIe467wzNLTHpMJYCOuxv-CiJehFMdc%7EwKD1j%7E9XDeINLGXUcDP-2eYxbn%7EFnBqfZkHgeFpCPAOXhKq8AqhlYboK22cYaxNOsvht6qA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c46b3b7b42d7c19da8ca01ad519c18d4
PDF Text
Text
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 4
R:
Many story. Next story maybe I’ll go. Same idea, same moral, but maybe a lot of detail.
R:
Okay, this story I call it The Golden Star Fruit Tree. I think in your country they have it
too, right?
R:
The star fruit tree.
R:
The fruit tree. But also they put the golden in front, that’s why it has some gold in this
story too. This one very rich man, very rich, who live in the village, he die. He have two sons.
The two sons inherit a lot of money, gold. But two sons are very different. One, the older, the
older one was greedy. The younger one was very kind.
Moderator: The elder one was what?
R:
Greedy. So the older one sat down with the all of the fortune that is his, and left for the
younger only a tree, the star fruit tree. They all have wife. So the older one is all set up about
that, so he don’t worry anything, but the younger one very worry, so he have to base on the tree
for living. So he take care of the tree and make the tree and day after day it get bigger and had a
lot of fruit. And one day the raven come and eat a lot of fruit from his tree. And he feel very sad.
He say, “Why you eat?” The raven didn’t say anything, but the raven keep coming every day and
eat that. So finally, he had to say, “Raven, please don’t eat my fruit because that the only thing I
have.” So the raven said, “Don’t worry. I will pay you back with gold.” And the raven also said,
“Okay, prepare for bag about 60 cm long and wide about three pounds. And wait for tomorrow
morning, I will come back and bring you to get the gold.”
So the next morning the raven come back and put him on his back and fly over the sea to
the island, to the cave, something like that, and get a lot of gold. And the younger one fill with
gold, come back, and he fly back to home. And when he get home, he now he . . . So he very
happy and now he remember his brother. So he contact his brother and invite him to his house.
And his brother say, “No. I don’t want to go.” Because his brother say, “This guy poor. I don’t
need to go there.” But he keep inviting him and say, “I have something for you.” So finally, the
elder come and then he surprised to see his brother now very big house, have a lot of things in
the house, and very healthy. So he asked him why he got that. So the younger one tell him the
truth, they have the tree and then the raven come and like that. So the other elder one say, “Okay,
now I want to do that.”
So he want to trade the tree with my property. So then he trade that and then he give his .
. . he waiting now, he have the tree. And then everyday he come and wait for the raven coming.
The raven will finally come and eat a lot of fruit. He say the same thing, “Raven, don’t eat my
fruit.” The raven say, “Okay, I will pay you back with gold. Prepare a bag with three pounds and
60 cm something. I will pick it up and you will get the gold.” But we know the elder one is very
greedy, so he doesn’t make the bag pounds, he make it six. So bigger, so he can get more gold.
So next day the raven come, carry him, fly over the sea, get to the island to get the gold. And he
filled with gold.
R:
He put the gold in the pocket and everywhere.
�R:
He just filled up and loaded with gold.
R:
He climbed up to the back of the raven and fly back over to the land, to his house. But,
when he fly to the sea and go for a couple minutes, it too heavy, overweight for the raven. So the
raven have to be gone down and leave him off the back, and he dropped to the sea. And died
there. He don’t get gold, because he say, “Let go, let go.” He don’t want to let go of the gold. He
keep going, get heavy, and then he fall down.
R:
So the moral of that story . . .
R:
And then the younger one waiting for his brother, and saying, “Why is it so long he’s not
come back?” And day after he met the raven and asked the raven why he not come back, and
raven tell him the story. He keep the gold and then he fell down.
Moderator: So now the younger brother gets both the properties and the tree.
R:
So the moral is the same, when you grab all things, then you lose everything.
R:
Don’t be greedy.
Moderator: Don’t take more than three pounds.
R:
That’s the back?
R:
No, bag. In the old time, they make bag like this. The raven gives an instruction to make
a bag . . .
Moderator: I would get very little gold if I was on that raven.
R:
Not one pound, you have three pounds.
R:
That’s . . . ?
Moderator: This is only one. See, this is what I want inside mine. I would be very poor but very
happy. I would be very happy with my three pounds. I would not die and live very modestly with
my three pounds.
R:
Great story.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnamese focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about the star fruit tree.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Vietnamese Focus Group, story 4.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/7a171b9696bd549de59f0ec45a514781.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=L6EISJW1-KD55-qNnp4pCwH8uzos2S54WWJfHDviK8q98okhXGq7C3IpHigEo-FK9Rf0UwkzsXQnZOVSJHb4DcuaJJBJ43z9-X87AuumtEK-bwtI4P4gmJTA5Y9z0PSlDXcoilezMXi2VisglKb1ZF8XOdXQ3QuCbiVI2KaQDr%7EkKAZCuQo5dOXLwciyU-fy8WrziXQ0X3IkcpTmFY4wTjgaYl5PqfycKs7BEx0tiOo3r17XA9dw3skI24dSW%7Eim%7E%7EZaK3f%7EDgonPfDyjZ87C9Z6kiPNLzM7c0Tm4yujqetDX2vWoL4LGtZP6YQuGlCWT5CAjZ2UfFFpkdBMOIEdBw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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Vietnamese Focus Group, story 3
R:
Yes. This story is called A Big Pot of Gold. In the old days, there was a husband and wife
who lived in a countryside. They are very poor but they have good heart. And then one day when
the husband went to the field, and he have a field of—they grow paddy, rice, and when they
plough the soil . . .
R:
They grow poppy fields?
R:
No paddy rice. Then when they plough soil in his land, he found a big pot of gold. Then
he just put it back, and that night when he went home he tell his wife that I found a big pot of
gold. And the wife said, “Where is it?” He said, “I put it back in our field.” And then the wife
said, “Why don’t you bring it home? If somebody take it then we lose it.” And he answer in a
calm voice, “If that’s the gift from Gods, then it will be ours.” And if it not, and if it fall to other
people hand, then that’s okay too. And during that time there’s a thief who stand in the corner of
the house. They listen to the husband and wife conversation. After the husband and wife went to
sleep, they go straight to the field and looking for the pot of gold. He found it and bring it to his
home. And then the next day . . .
Moderator: Who is this person?
R:
A thief. They overheard the husband and wife story. Then the next day, the husband went
to the field, but he couldn’t find the . . . the thief took the pot home and then when he open it he
saw lot, lot of snakes, big snake crawling in the pot. So he just took the lid and cover it up and
put it away. Then the next day, the husband went to the field and he could not find the pot of
gold. That night he went home and talked to his wife and said, “Somebody took it. I could not
find it.” And the wife said, “I told you to bring it home and you didn’t listen.” And the husband
still answer in a calm voice, “It got took, the gold. It’s okay too.”
Then at that time the thief is also listen to the couple. And he talk to himself, “This man
must be a blind person because there is only snake, not gold.” So he said that I will bring the pot
of snake back to this field. And then the next day the husband went to the field and he found the
pot again. He open it up, yes there’s a lot of gold inside. He left it there and went back home,
talked to his wife. “I found it again.” And the wife said, “but why don’t you bring it home?” And
the husband said, “If it is a gift from God, then it should follow us home. Don’t be worried. It
will find home.” At this time the thief also stand in the corner of the house and he said, “Oh my
God, this man is so crazy. He must be very blind. Okay, I will bring the pot of snake to his home.
So the snake will bite both of them to death.”
So the thief go to the field and carry that pot, and put right in front of his house. The next
morning the husband wake up and when he went out of his . . . , he found the pot right there.
He’s very happy, and he open it, he saw there’s gold inside full to the top, and he called his wife.
“Honey, come here. Here I told you, can you see the gift from God. It find its way home.” And
then from that time they become rich and they help out other poor people. That’s the end of the
story.
R:
Nice.
R:
Where did the thief go?
�R:
They didn’t say it. But the thief didn’t get anything.
R:
But the moral behind the story is if you’ve done good deeds, or if you are a good person,
it’s become like the . . .
R:
You have the rewards.
R:
You get the rewards, but the thief is not a good person. He only want to steal from the
couple, so he could not find anything good in that pot.
R:
Yeah, many story tell us about if you bad, you get whatever you get, if you’re good you
will get . . .
Moderator: You’ll get your just reward.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnames focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about a farmer who found a big pot of god in his rice patty field.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
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Vietnamese Focus Group, story 3.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/d674f409fd78fbe1103f699acefee209.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=s8xiBAL4xecC7scj8FwF3aMhhjkdPwFU2u0SgDBylsgW7s5t2yc-M5G5gmlb5VFv8zYnr71uQre4tF59QO%7EPiVbpn1PngayLh7lJ1OZ26SuqBI2oJRE%7EYB3yJ9GIvgXlUWiz2JNVcRTlYMFXk4AdQXKlaW26nHhLAN6p4WS3JBjC%7EhD2dXZfirA0M5hB2Ik3CWjc%7EDkkWH0f4MwOh3lYcRpWFFObbHmusDCKWFY1-9MHLT8oHw2lJw8PcVbyslcokZnA2N4GFmJfHG45auySEL6IU8nF0cN2eZ0YFXLivu6v3%7EAvpHsaarx9EILfCKYiJ4lBWheBHHgOy8DazOEKaw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 2
R:
This story was my favorite story when I was a little kid. My parents told me about it, and
I also read it from books for moral teaching. I don’t remember all the details, but the main idea . .
.
R:
We have friends who will help.
R:
Yeah, we have friends who will help, but basically there was a couple who was in the
business of selling and buying things to earn a living. But they was not very honest, so when they
make the balance, of mercury in the middle, the bar for the balance. It’s empty in the middle.
R:
Balances, the scale was empty?
R:
In the middle, there’s an empty tube, and they put mercury in it. There’s a hollow tube.
So they put the . . . and mercury was the metal that has the highest density. So when they buying
something, they would try to make that it would weigh less so that they don’t have to pay more.
They use that . . .
R:
Very scientific. Mercury will move it and . . .
R:
Yes. And when they sell things they would try to tip the scale to the other side so that will
weigh more, so the mercury will . . . It can flow easily. Remember mercury . . .
R:
Nobody know.
R:
It’s a liquid metal, right, so . . .
R:
It flows.
R:
After a while, they got rich real quick, they bought houses and they had two sons. They
was good, but it got to the point that they got so rich and then they knew that they was not being
honest. And they tell each other that maybe because in ancient culture they believe in whatever
deed you do, if you do bad deed, bad thing will come to you. Therefore, they say maybe now we
are so rich, maybe we should stop doing that. So they decided to get rid of that scale. They chop
it in half and inside they found a drop of blood. Not a drop but it’s like a clump of blood. They
were so terrified. After a while, the two sons dies. One die first and then the other one die too.
One after the other. So they felt so bad for a few months. You know fairy tale, so they cry for a
long time.
R:
They mourn.
R:
Yeah. The wizard . . .
Moderator: The Buddha.
R:
No, I think there was another name for it. Not a wizard, the good fairy. The good fairy
appeared to them and say it seem like because they’d been crying for months, after their two sons
die. They’d been crying and they were very sad for two months. So afterwards the good fairy
appear to them and say, “Now I can see that you really feel sorry for what you did. And don’t
�worry about it, the two sons that you lost, actually they are the evil children that was sent to you.
Now don’t worry, just continue being good and then you will have other children.” And they did.
So the moral story behind it is that they teach people to be honest.
Moderator: What’s the title of this story?
R:
The Mercury Balance. Or scale. I think it’s a balance.
R:
Back then we don’t have electrical scale, we have like a . . . like a . . . adjusted we have
the scale.
Moderator: Picture of where you have the two balances.
R:
The scale where one heavier.
R:
Kind of there’s a long stick and there’s a hook at one end and then when you weigh it you
will put the weight on the other side. But the rod across, the horizontal rod, is hollow so you can
put mercury in there.
R:
The fairy is a Buddha thing. It’s like the . . .
R:
In Vietnamese, they call it But. Good fairy.
Moderator: Male or female?
R:
Male.
R:
Do you know like the one that you have at the store, where people put the dollar?
R:
That’s different.
R:
I think that’s for . . .
R:
Could you spell that, please?
R:
B-U-T . . . with a dot under.
Moderator: If you were to spell it phonetically, though? But an OO with a line at the top.
Because if we see that, But, but if you do the Boot. Spell it phonetically so we can use it.
R:
I don’t know, most of the Vietnamese fairy tale the But is always the male. I don’t know,
maybe it’s because of . . .
R:
There’s two good character, always happy people.
Moderator: Yeah, because the Westerns, they always said it’s a female. So I want to make sure
it’s culturally right gender.
R:
We have both. Fairy is female. But But is male.
�R:
To distinguish, we say . . . Actually, . . . always is the male. You don’t even need to use
this. But . . . that mean it’s for the female. The good fairy is female, but is for male.
Moderator: And this is the female fairy [Bah] Tien.
R:
But this I can’t really do like that what I did on here.
R:
Sometime just represent by a long bare person, no hair.
R:
This is the male. [Bah] Tien.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnamese focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about a couple who was in a business of selling and buying.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 3 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 2.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/37fcc2256285e6a63ebac745dd3cda91.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=ErRWS5XHR6D9nIpeaL%7EWpEx1SHYLbJ%7Eo1nR83gPK2pPxwuQfGwzbREfn4i3wLGLTa5P3foL5XvIPNLWucrjpGYCZxrW8zNrnw8TxJwJX6zgpvfAhj59%7E4XJvUgfQPPI6-PHRiPrYGAcgBWh9TcGPmze6GQDXloSzOhOPRRrZMiIktqQuTXPpE-hT1dde-g%7EphLtxmtt8tZiw4zhP1cqHV-CtffRIY6ptO6e4EDBDzvrOrEt4ojfdpP5Q75i2oXf3feULlJc71AmZyRJKkAzPUHjjUzr2SnQ6blI0iBKR3ByEcF0fjEaRkd6hTOwbXeE%7EBPkswk78EA%7Eg96s4vkJl1A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c41dcdcedff964a5af3583999c373d50
PDF Text
Text
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 1
R:
Me? So the story I’m going to tell is about the God of the Mountain and the God of the
Sea. In during the time of King [Honban], the 18th, he had one of the princesses is the most
beautiful lady. So when she came of age, the King wanted to marry her off, so he’s been looking
for a male with all kinds of . . . or like wealthy, handsome.
Moderator: All these characteristics. Tall, dark, and handsome, and wealthy, okay.
R:
So they tried to get him the most suitable to marry her. So one day, there are two
gentlemen appear and they both fit perfectly for the princess. So once he introduce himself as the
God of the Mountain, which is something, it’s spelled S-O-N and then the . . .
Moderator: S-O-N?
R:
SON, N as in Nancy. Son mean mountain. Tinh mean God. So he say, “I'm the God of
the Mountain.” I own all those on the land, trees, animals, all kind of good things there, and he
had a lot of powers too. So the king was like, “I really like you.” And then the other man was
like, “I’m the God of . . . I’m Thuy Tinh. I'm the God of the Sea, so I own all kind of things
that’s under the sea. I have power, he was handsome, and I own all the wealth down under the
sea. So the king was like, “I only have one daughter. I would love to have you both as my son-inlaw, but since I only have one, so who ever gather sort of like what you call . . . When you
asking someone to marry you have to bring all kind of gift.
Moderator: Dowry.
R:
The dowry is for the girl, the offering. All kind of gift offering. So whoever comes back
with the offering first, I will give my daughter to that person. So the next day, Son Tinh, which is
the God of the Mountain, came back first and so the king marry off his daughter. The God of the
Sea came an hour later and heard that the God of Mountain already married the princess. He got
very upset. He was so aggressive, so he use all his power. He raises the sea level up and he make
wind, he make the rain came, the sea rise.
R:
Tsunami.
Moderator: A sore loser.
R:
Yeah, it rise and what he wanted to start the war with the Mountain God, so he could take
back the princess. The God of Mountain doesn’t want to move the princess that easily. So as the
water raise, he also raised the mountain. So both had been fighting for days, lives were lost. But
after a while they both get tired, so the Sea God settled down, calm down, everything came back
to normal. So what they say is that once in a while when the God of the Sea get upset, and he still
want to take back the princess so he keep fighting, so that’s why people say there’s tsunami,
there’s some other . . . So that is my story. Every time they fight, the Sea God lost.
Moderator: Would that mean that the Mountain King also, is that when you have avalanche and
earthquake that that would explain him? Like when he is fighting?
R:
In this one, I think just explain why we have the tsunami, the flooding.
�R:
The mountain was just raised up.
Moderator: I didn’t know if he crumbled the mountain.
R:
Thank you.
R:
Yeah, I mean like almost every year they have either flooding or . . .
R:
A rematch.
R:
Yeah, a rematch. But every time they fight, the Sea God lost.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Vietnamese focus group meeting where one story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story was about the god of the mountain and the god of the sea during King Honban.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vietnamese Focus Group, story 1.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/e01d414e80d437305b823e1f4751b533.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=JUNFFZ4IwSB36klyR7OPt3rlG08uJfu-PjcUmYjEwPkPuegFcuYjBSzPimR2YxOY1uppf5Q%7ErAHyB2cj0O10-LiD01BZ4Ttk%7ElUy63GUKoLA6noTK3c8M7Li%7EbCtrYZZ1oh78IDGG%7Ej%7ENOqKxXntOBVPVuldfRONvrZM-Y%7EkRrhoLjgBtvl-c5eH34iWJ2Fy1d2OVCREyq54fGzWx0A3pwhnTyazRl0B8IwjII9Q%7EkOTZoUkVxi5VGYDojfKQED0qRoyJ1fV9%7EeEp%7EJMW6Mr75h1sUxk%7EJdmBFl8hqg9aQxQgGNSXEaGhHRXAp9myqDnvRYX2IzFAKXV3ii64sMwYQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
53ac49ad8826a6dc463e1728ebcc4325
PDF Text
Text
Yang: So recently we got some story we read back to them again in different version.
There was one story I recently remember. Is about, this family who have a servant who is a
man. He worked really hard, and he happened to love, fall in love with the daughter of that
man. And because of the differences, he wouldn't want to marry his daughter to this poor
guy. But he make a promise to him, "Hey when you work hard, when you plug enough I will
let you marry my daughter." So, the servant, he believed him so he worked really hard. And
until the time to get married, he arranged marriage his daughter with another rich family.
Yang: story 1
And to keep this guy, he's asking him to say, "Hey, wedding tomorrow, but now you
have to do one last thing. You have to go to the forest and find a bamboo tree with a
hundred blocks." And he went to the woods and tried to find, there were so many of them
he couldn't find any of them a hundred pieces. So he was crying, and over here they getting
the party ready for marry.
One of the, fairy came over him while he was crying and asked him, "Why you cry?"
"I am trying to find this bamboo tree, so I can go back and get married." The fairy said,
"Well why don't you do this, you find 100 pieces of bamboo" and then he give you a secret
word so when he say "come back", everything will connect to a long bamboo. And he tried
to carry that long thing around, again and he couldn't get it, it was so long so he cry again.
The fairy say, "Okay well, I'll give you another one, break up to a hundred pieces, collect
them all and go back home." He came back home, and he found they were getting ready for
marriage.
Everybody came out, mocking him, "I told you to get a long bamboo tree now you
leave me a hundred piece of bamboo." He said, "Well I'll show you." He said, "They connect,
the all connect to a long bamboo tree." And this family they were like, "Oh okay, well, but I
don't want to marry my daughter to you anyway." And he said, "Okay, connect." And
everybody in their family stick to the tree. And they end up have to let him marry their
daughter. So, yeah it's a story about, you know [crosstalk].
Phan: In Vietnam too. They were Tan, T-A-N, not my name.
Phan: story 1
Speaker 1:
Her name is Tan?
Speaker 1:
She supported the family?
Phan: Tan. She was really poor. Her mom passed away. Her father got married with
another one, so she got step mother. Her step mother doesn't love her, so she designates a
lot of chores and a lot of work for Tan to work, to do, while her step-sister doesn't do
anything. She did everything in the house, and even she work out a lot, work out her family
to have goods, and everything, but ...
�Phan: She supported the family, and she didn't have enough clothes to wear, but she had
good heart. She was so helpful, and she were willing to help everyone, so everyone loved
her a lot. Somehow whenever she got a difficult situation, the old man, like a fairy, appear
and help her every time.
Her mom, her step mom and her step-sister were really angry because when she
grows up, she looks so beautiful, even though she doesn't have good outwear, she doesn't
have good clothes at all, but she still looks so beautiful. But they feel competitive with her.
They figure out many ways to kill her, but they were unsuccessful. One day when the prince
wanted to get married with a girl, give out a lot of competition so that the beautiful girls can
go and have a competition if they can show that they are beautiful, they are skillful, the
prince may get married with him.
The step mother and the step-sister didn't want them to go to the competition
because they knew that if she come she will win. So they figure out some way to prevent
her from coming. They made a lot of work, a lot of chores so that she didn't have enough
time to finish, and then she can't.
But with the help of a lot of creatures around, like the mouses, the mice, what else ...
the fairy appear and help her. They helped her to finish the chores, and I remember really
hard chores take a lot of time for her. They mess up the rice, the beans ...
Speaker 1:
And the grains.
Phan: The grain. She was gonna separate one by one. That's a lot, but the birds came and
helped her out.
Speaker 1:
So they are animals?
Phan: Yeah, a lot of animals come and help her out with those. She didn't have good
clothes to the party, to the competition.
They make magic, the fairy. But in our tradition, in our [inaudible], it's not a girl
fairy, it's an old man fairy appear and help her. It's similar.
Speaker 1:
Very similar.
Phan: She's supposed to get back before midnight. If she didn't get back before midnight,
everything gonna turn back, the clothes, the high heel is gonna turn back. The magic is not
gonna affect after midnight. Before midnight, she remembered that and then she run back,
but she forgot her shoe, a small shoe.
So the prince got that shoe, and he noticed that whoever can fit that shoe is gonna be
his wife. Then only [inaudible] matched the shoe, so the prince chose her to be his wife, to
be the queen. But the story didn't stop there.
Cinderella did like that, but in our version, when she became the queen, she gets
back to her house, on the death day, the anniversary of her father is really important day in
our tradition. So she come back, she helps out and she gets ready to offer a lot of food to her
�fathers spirit. Her step mother asked her to climb up to the tree, the tall tree to get
something, to get a fruit to offer her father spirit. When she was climbing up to the tree,
they cut down the root of the tree, she dies.
She dies, and then she became a bird, and fly back to the palace. At that time, the
step mother replaced her daughter, her step-sister, to go to the palace to become the queen.
But the prince at that time, he didn't care about Tan, that sister. He still missed her a lot.
Speaker 1:
It's sad.
Phan: It's so sad. Then the bird flew back to the palace. When her step-sister were doing
something, were trying the clothes for the prince, the bird appear and say something like,
“When you wash my husband clothes, remember to wash it clearly, and never hang it up on
the fence. It's gonna damage my husband clothes.” And the prince heard that, and the
prince know somehow the bird is his old past life. He really loved the bird. He kept the bird
with him in a cage. And then her step-sister was envious, and figured out a way to kill the
bird.
Later, the bird with the help of ... I forgot that thing, but later, with the fairy help, the
bird spirit become Tan again, and they got a happy life. The prince, who intended to give
sentence to the step mother and step-sister because of their bad deeds. There's two ending.
So the first ending, Tan asked the prince to forgive them. So she was so good, she
wants to forgive them, she doesn't want to do harm for them. And the second version, there
is ... but I don't like this version ending, they say after she got back, and have a happy life
with the prince, the step mother and step-sister still feel angry, and they ask her how can
you get the white skin, so beautiful skin like that? And then Tan say, “Sit in a hole, half the
body, pour boiling water, and you will get nice skin.”
At that time I said, “Wow, that's weird.” because Tan have good heart, so she didn't
do like that. But because it is a fairytale, some people want to get some kind of ending to
punish the bad people so that it exist two kinds of ending. But I like the first one better.
Phan: Yeah, language. We come from a fairy, and a dragon. When they get married with
each other ...
Phan: story 2
Speaker 1:
The origin of the country?
Phan: Yeah, the origin of the country. So the fairy got pregnant, and she gave birth to 100
children. And later they know that the drag and the fairy cannot live with each other longer,
forever. So they separated. 50 children followed the father to go to the mountain, and 50
others followed mom to go to the [delta]. So that's why nowadays, the 50 children gave
birth to children, and grandchildren, and they are living in a mountain. And the other 50
have children and grand children for a generation in the delta. We are in the same parents.
�We should love each other. We have same connection with each other. In our
country, we use really special name, that is [foreign language] that in Vietnamese, there are
no relevant translation in English, but it means that we are in the same origin. We are
brother and sister. We are relative of each other.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a meeting with a Lowell area Vietnamese community member where Vietnamese stories were shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian folktales book. One story shared was about a servent that fell in love with the daughter of a rich family. The second story was about a poor girl who had step-mom and step-sister that did not wanted her to get better than them. The third story was about a fairy had a 100 children with a dragon, but the fairy and the dragon could not live with each other so half the children lived with the fairy and the other half lived with the dragon.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 4 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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CWilinsky_Vietnamese isolated from individual transcripts.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/87bb61dccec48a0bb0a2ee76373ed054.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Nd11kVECz36udUKN6yWHOXZcw3aKlO9gqQ4GzIoJ7UVZzQ1xGsSuVlh2gjrkfogmxisBs6btzYG0AWVe2po1YbeOKzXas69cFvMFP8ibipoT5dmQQ6DbYNoFeWlv4EIeSf-Ak5XlPP8NbrrBo-zEfa1ZDImLv31YHVdYXqMuGOW%7EC25u8VDMw-dQ27WY9SIUXoKGXKaPyAt5ueb0xbHdnQqD3c2O1wj7McOFSEYi5IF1J0I9TtFIa8QBeaG1KVB22FSSZVwXQJJSrbHLLJplE22hxzOH5oHK4WRc7nqjy6bkdm4QhL0ykPq7oxxJPAw%7ExQ6jthW7P8YcFFzhodVLqg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8aff4b1dcdbb8e055d77000758201744
PDF Text
Text
Lao Focus Group, story 7
R:
It long times ago, the one lady who has been passed away or have one boy? No, one boy,
not one boy. The girl. Because every day, don’t have father, mother, go get the—go look for
mushroom and bamboo to sell in the market for living every day, but she poor and then—and
that day, and . . . even to drink, you know, no bamboo, no mushroom, to take home to sell in the
market to sell somebody. She doesn’t have money, she’s really hungry. No rain. The river
dried up. No water to drink. And she saw . . .
Moderator: The foot, a footprint of an elephant.
R:
Footprint elephant, the king’s elephant come there. She stepped on that thing. She said,
“Oh, I found the water,” the water from the footprint. She pregnant. And when she had the
baby, the girl, she go to school every day, you know, . . . small like take the . . . She went to
school, the friend told her, you know, you . . . my daughter, you don’t have father who, you sleep
with your mom, but you're mom pregnant. I don’t see nobody. And she . . . come home, but
they say to you, you know, and said that they told me I’m the elephant daughter. You know
why, you know, elephant kid. You sleep with an elephant? She asked her mom. No, I went to
mountain every day to look for the bamboo and the mushroom, everything I can make for the
money for sell, you know, to sell and buy the food to eat every day and then the mother is sick
and almost died and [see if she] tell the truth for the daughter. You know, I dreamed of water. I
found the water in the footprint, the elephant footprint, that I’m pregnant. But I don’t know,
maybe that he pee in there, I drank that and I pregnant. I didn’t go to nobody . . . husband, only
that I drank that water. You know, and she pass away and the daughter . . . She went to go to
the mountain to look for the elephant. The elephant said, “Why you come here?” Answer, you
know, “My mom pass away, she said the big elephant in the mountain,” you know, I will ask
you, “Are you my father?” He said, “I don’t know. I didn’t sleep with your mom. Why you my
daughter?” . . . really beautiful and smell like perfume.
Moderator: Perfume.
R:
She go everywhere, you know, smell like perfume every day, you know, every day, . . . ,
you know? And then elephant said, “If you're my daughter,” she bend down . . .
R:
Oh, the trunk?
R:
Go down, when you my daughter, you can go up there. My trunk, that really is slippery.
When you're my daughter, you can stand on that.
R:
She said if she’s actually the elephant’s daughter, then she’ll be able to climb his trunk.
R:
. . . to really . . . It smelled good. And then the elephant say, “Oh, you're my daughter.
Accept you're my daughter.” And he build, you know, he make the house for her in the
mountain, because she doesn’t have the mom no more. So and then she grow up, the elephant to
go look for the food, get for her every day, you know, you don’t have a mom to take care of you,
I take care of you. And then as she I think turn to be 18 years old, she said, “I cannot live in the
mountain with my dad. I have to look for someone to take care of me,” and she cut her hair to
�put in a bamboo, that thing, to tie it very good and put the . . . in there to keep it wet for the
[river]. The . . . to open and said I look for my lover. You can find me in the mountain and on
top of the mountain there, I live there. I don’t have a mom. I have a dad. My dad is elephant.
She said, you know, can you accept me as a wife? You will be, you know—to be your wife, you
can go up to find me.” And the prince ride a horse to go up the mountain to see her and they
really fall in love, you know, they have two kids together. The elephant come back. She’s
hiding the husband in the trunk, what do they call it? The cave of the tree. Big tree, right, in the
mountain. Said, oh, maybe my dad doesn’t like the human, you know, he may kill my kid and
my husband, you know? And the father get mad. I smell that, no, human in here. Why you
don’t tell me the truth? And the father said, I want to go somewhere. He came back and bring
the food for daughter and . . . come back. He know that daughter lie to him, but he know, but
then he go away. The daughter, and she took her husband and . . . [in the river] go down to the
kingdom. The father come back to see them in the boat. Oh, my goodness, . . .
R:
Wait, so she ran away with the guy down the Mekong?
R:
With her husband and the kid.
R:
Because she’s scared her dad?
R:
She scared her dad will kill her husband and kid.
R:
Okay, yeah.
R:
And then she flowed down the river, the father came back. He really got mad and he
looked everywhere. He . . . the tree, everywhere that you leave and not tell me, you’re my
daughter, you know, you have to tell me the truth. And then—and got really loud, right, in the
mountain, he and the father.
R:
And then did they get away?
R:
Her father died.
R:
Oh.
R:
How?
R:
Because he get mad, he get broken heart when daughter leave him, you know, heart
attack. And then he . . . the daughter that when I die, to take this, you know, to put the . . .
Moderator: The ivory tusk.
R:
...
...
And put it . . .
�Moderator: So in Laos, what you do is you do . . .
R:
Put the bamboo together, because you don’t have a boat, right?
R:
Yeah, yeah.
Moderator: So you take the bamboo and then you weave it together into a boat. You bring the
tusk and put it into the bamboo.
R:
Float the Mekong River to somewhere.
R:
It’s like legend.
R:
And then he float that thing to the river and it go to the blood of a son, you know, father.
R:
Oh, son-in-law.
R:
Because the . . .
R:
Wait, it flowed to the son-in-law?
R:
No, the son-in-law, the . . .
Moderator: Best friend to the son-in-law.
R:
King.
R:
Oh.
Moderator: Remember, the prince is with his—the elephant’s daughter, but the offering, when I
die, you need to put my tusk as an offering to the river and when it flowed down, it flowed down
to the prince’s best friend.
R:
But then you know, the water go down this way, but they go up.
R:
Mm-hmm.
R:
That they go up to the king.
R:
Yeah.
R:
King’s city there and he said that when I went to hunting, every time I found him and
we’d go together. He met them. The end.
R:
The end?
Moderator: I’m sorry.
R:
The friend was really happy they found that.
�Moderator: The ivory tusk .
R:
He took it.
Moderator: The ivory trade is very popular in southeast Asia and so it’s worth a lot of money.
And so when you cut off—that’s what they use ivory keys for and other—ivory that’s been used
in pianos and stuff. So when you cut off the ivory tusk of an elephant, it doesn’t grow back. So
it was worth a lot and it was ironic that the ivory tusk of the prince’s father-in-law went to the
prince’s best friend.
R:
And then he just took it and the end?
R:
The end, because he was really happy that he found that. He didn’t know who it
belonged to.
R:
Oh, so good or bad? Oh, so it’s legend, like he still has it to this day?
...
Moderator: So you see in the kingdom, that the ivory tusks are in—it’s in front of the palace.
R:
Oh.
Moderator: So the palace, he enshrined it as this is a very powerful—like so the elephant’s like a
patriarch, a matriarch. They are the . . . So there’s a million elephants in Laos and so it’s the
kingdom of the elephants.
R:
Yes.
Moderator: And so those—the elephant, it was his kingdom. It was an honoring of his deceased
father.
R:
Father-in-law.
Moderator: Father-in-law, yes. Because he was a hunter and he went searching for stuff in the
woods and he found the ivory in the Mekong River.
R:
Oh, and it was the daughter?
R:
The daughter and son—the daughter-in-law and son, that he . . . they're really happy.
R:
Oh.
Moderator: He traveled north. The prince traveled north to find the daughter-in-law.
R:
Yeah.
R:
Mm-hmm.
�Moderator: And then when he brought—now that his father-in-law has passed away, he brought
the princess, his wife, back down to his kingdom in the south and that’s where, unbeknownst to
them, because the daughter had done this—what do you call that? Homage to the father.
R:
Like the Viking ship? Yeah.
Moderator: Yeah, right? And so she’s like, I’m doing this donation and it goes down and it
actually ends up in his palace, in his kingdom in the south.
R:
Oh, wow.
R:
Because his daughter went to bury him and everything, you know, the son-in-law too.
Because when he died, he told the daughter, said you come back and . . .
R:
So it was full circle. She buried him like a Viking burial down the river and then . . .
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared is about an orphan girl who drank an elephant's pee and became pregnant.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 5 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 7.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/d808e442ef5bab4506d633abc627f746.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Skjojuw%7EeaomrpJK8kKUxmuw6zzbTfrkVCNWpqkKfTFdJxh8jE1U%7E0MQAGRK8bmTtP3Yh%7EbE7VB16eSW7yZZVbhF7CzLsegAULyQWcYWuVE2DK8ql68lKgGp027biAvGxOzUZbV6Qmd6CwpF-kBTUe7yUfqv6k1H5%7Evfn2b4HB4trq6ZIP5X-unil2928iJkkd48L2kbaXCtWeWMY9uBdjA4kkly%7EsDFer9viNB7%7E9TZKxxs4WcD2F0KvVaxGitlB7SZ0mRCMhmk4k99UNWM9StSr2ZQzFogrV6ZW4wo7yg4SX4xSbyOmB0lOcqRNekbFE%7EUsxBZtls6sqRUxlp6mg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e1d1948a8dd8671c78ff944ae2702dfa
PDF Text
Text
Lao Focus Group, story 6
Moderator: So it’s a true story?
...
Moderator: A long time ago.
...
Moderator: In the heritage city of . . .
...
Moderator: There’s four.
R:
Four kings.
Moderator: Four kings in the ancient . . .
...
R:
Four kings?
Moderator: So there’s four kingdoms in the olden times, . . . yeah. And . . . So those are the four
regions of Laos. Northern, middle . . .
R:
Four kings.
Moderator: So the four kingdoms of Laos.
...
Moderator: One of the kingdoms, his name is . . .
...
Moderator: He’s the king of . . .
...
Moderator: He was sleeping and he was dreaming.
...
Moderator: He was dreaming that he was crossing the river.
...
�Moderator: King what?
...
Moderator: What’s a . . . ?
R:
Poop.
Moderator: The king? Okay, why are people eating poop?
...
Moderator: Okay, so he had a dream that he was eating poop?
...
Moderator: Okay.
...
R:
Why is everything about poop?
Moderator: I don’t know.
R:
We’ll find out.
...
...
Moderator: Okay, so he’s straddling the [Meekon] River with one leg on each side of the
Meekon River.
...
Moderator: So as he’s eating the poop—I’m so glad we finished eating.
...
Moderator: He wakes up. This is a dream. He goes to the temple and talks to [Ajon] who is the
monk.
...
Moderator: Ajon’s name is . . .
...
Moderator: So he interprets the dream for them and says, oh, you're going to have good luck.
�...
Moderator: So now you need to travel north, up north.
...
R:
By boat.
Moderator: By boat.
...
R:
Canoe boat.
Moderator: By the canoe boat, so it’s by yourself, paddle up.
...
R:
The waterfall.
Moderator: Okay, so he approaches a waterfall.
...
Moderator: There’s one piece of gold, just like a lime, the size of a lime, a gold nugget.
...
Moderator: So as he was canoeing, he struck a golden nugget the size of a lime?
...
Moderator: He says if you come upon a golden nugget, don’t take it. So when you're at the top
of the waterfall?
R:
Yeah, the big waterfall.
...
Moderator: Now as he’s paddling, now the nugget is now a pound of gold nugget.
R:
Not a pound, coconut.
R:
Coconut.
R:
It’s a big one.
Moderator: It’s not a pound, it’s a coconut.
...
�R:
. . . eat the poop.
Moderator: Now that he’s paddling up to . . .
...
Moderator: . . . is another region, another city.
R:
Another town.
R:
Another town.
R:
Soon he gets to another town, he found another gold, big like 55 gallon—
Moderator: So like a 55 gallon of kerosene, the container?
R:
Yes.
Moderator: That’s how much gold he found. The monk says don’t take that, don’t take that.
Keep going.
...
Moderator: So now it’s in the evening, he’s getting hungry. So now he parks his canoe and he
comes on the river bank.
R:
And the name is [Parkan]. The town is [Bakan].
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So the tributary to the Meekon is Parkan and NonBakan] which is close by.
...
Moderator: Which is near . . .
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So now he’s starting to do the . . .
...
R:
He starts the fire cooking.
Moderator: So he’s getting ready to start the fire.
...
R:
He went to get a rock to make like a stove.
�Moderator: Okay, so he’s now . . .
R:
So he can put like three logs . . . to make a stove, okay?
Moderator: He wants to make a camp fire, right? So he’s collecting the wood for the kinder and
now he has three stones to put the stove on top.
...
Moderator: So he grabs the rock. Now the rock turns to gold. And he turns around and around
him is just gold everywhere. All the rocks are gold. So now he’s . . .
R:
Build a temple.
Moderator: So he builds a temple.
R:
The temple name is [Simkon]
Moderator: So Simkon. So in . . .
R:
That’s a real story.
[Crosstalk]
R:
Yeah, that’s a real story.
Moderator: There is several different temple names.
R:
One’s Simkon and one’s . . .
Moderator: [Simand]. The two temples names are . . .
...
Moderator: Simand and many of these temples . . .
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: Okay, we have to hear the story. We have to hear the story first, because if we have
four people talking, the person typing will hear four voices.
R:
Okay, after they build two temples, Simand and Simkon, then the gold is still left and
they put where? They put in the mountain called . . .
...
Moderator: The mountain. And so all of this gold, there are over 100 temples in the region and
so they used the gold to build these temples and they kept having leftover gold and so they then
�started moving out of the . . . city into the mountain to build another temple in the mountain with
the leftover gold.
...
R:
The temple now is about 800 years now.
Moderator: Eight hundred years old.
...
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So the moral of the story is . . .
...
Moderator: So remember, the monk says whatever you get—like it started off with just the lime
nugget and he says, “Don’t take that. Wait until you get to your destination and that’s where
you’re going to find your gold and that’s where he found the masses of gold.
R:
I think it’s about you can take what is belongs to you, not belong to somebody. Don’t
take anything that belongs to somebody. What we learned from that.
Moderator: So take what is yours and not what are others?
R:
Yes.
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So this story is written in the tombs of the scriptures of the monks. So in each of
these temples, you will hear this story.
...
Moderator: So that’s like, it started with just a dream and then he went on this journey to go up
north and he followed the monk’s advice by not taking things that weren't his.
R:
There’s a lot of people have dreams like that in my country.
Moderator: And so when people dream about eating poop, it’s actually a good luck dream?
R:
It’s lucky.
[Crosstalk]
R:
If you crave the poop—if you have a dream you crave the poop, you have good luck.
[Crosstalk]
�R:
Okay.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story is shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared is about the four kingdoms of Laos.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 7 p.
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 6.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/c6926429b07bd550ab9aab2c169012ff.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=CM4KT39YepcrydKZ6bis2ny0Bn3jI26q3LDRPaiqi0dxMvaJ4D08a68Bh%7EVOg4alaurKkI4iUltxadKTJo9QQkoo62R%7EhMEERLgrcf6987u0CfgRHyZD%7EGcA8nl-4JoeW9PILji8RQUxiUe7DBYXExA8N0O6DKSsH-fx8rsFUBSrdYRL2e2mh%7EIB9yYbKk1QiFENs5Y%7EJY%7ERFpWqgsfoMDg1aqepwovJtZAQ5kr0g4BuBrfg3FsYlcIAf6IuObKcpzJsmoOY1zijg255N5DLQAje3ecaWvMu0jk-7ygBIQDYEiSzZEkXfC-Yb2qiVP-r5tOeOH1pm6VJgq-GGvrP7A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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Text
Lao Focus Group, story 5
R:
. . . my dog and meat.
Moderator: Okay, so this is a story about a dog and . . .
R:
And meat.
Moderator: And the meat.
R:
Okay? I learned at school very young about this.
Moderator: So he learned this when he was younger.
R:
Yes.
Moderator: The dog, he traveled from his house to go to another . . . , then he found the meat.
Small meat.
R:
Somewhere between—somebody left on the road somewhere.
Moderator: Okay.
R:
Then he walked with the meat in the mouth, so when he passed the bridge, the water right
there, passed by the sun was very [shy] and he was looking in the water. He sees the meat, it’s
very big.
Moderator: The reflection of the meat?
R:
He said, oh, I’m going to get that big meat. His meat in there.
Moderator: Uh huh.
R:
And he dropped the small meat and jumped to the water to get the meat. There’s no meat
and he lost the small piece of meat. And he cannot swim. And the alligator come help him out
to cross the river to across the river, the dog pooped on the alligator’s head. That’s why you see
the poop head in there? That’s a dog poop in there. Yes. Then . . .
Moderator: But why? Why would he poop on his head?
R:
Because he needs to hunt. He got mad to the alligator.
Moderator: Why? What did the alligator do?
R:
He opened the mouth, that’s why he was afraid the alligator was going to eat him. He
pooped in the head.
�Moderator: Okay, so we missed that, right? So as he—what, the alligator came to take the dog
across. The dog was afraid of the alligator, because he opened his mouth.
R:
Uh huh.
Moderator: And so when—like the scared poopless. So he was so scared, he pooped.
R:
Came out from him.
Moderator: So he pooped on his head and then he jumped off the alligator’s head.
R:
Uh huh. What we learn from here? Okay? Okay.
Moderator: Okay.
R:
Okay, what we learn in here. Two things we have to learn in here. When people give
you—you found the meat, it belongs to you, not belongs to somebody or . . . to steal another
piece of meat from somebody.
Moderator: Mm-hmm, so be grateful for what you have and not what someone else has?
R:
Yeah, then . . .
R:
Poop on the alligator head.
R:
Then you learn from the dog right here? You learn from the dog, from here, that people
help you out, give you food or carry or something, you get accident. You show respect, say
thank you, not poop on their head, okay?
Moderator: So learn that lesson and say no pooping, but you have to be thankful.
R:
So the dog never learned his lesson.
R:
No. He’s still learning from that. You, say thank you, you know?
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So that story, the title for the story is The Dog and His Meat? Right? So once upon
a time, there was a dog and he was in a village and he was walking to another village, right? So
along the way, when he walked to the other village, he saw a small piece of meat on the side of
the road. And so he got all excited, he was like, “Okay, I’m going to take this piece of meat with
me.” So as he is traveling, the meat has—so I’m thinking it’s the bone with a little meat on it,
right? So he grabs onto it and has it into his teeth. And as he was walking, he’s crossing over a
bridge and it was really bright and so he looked down and he saw his reflection in the water and
he noticed that in the reflection in the water, there was a bigger piece of meat. Because the light
shining on the reflection causes . . .
R:
He was greedy.
�Moderator: And so he was like, “I don’t want this one. I want that one down there.”
R:
Yes, exactly.
Moderator: So he opens his mouth, dives down, but he can’t swim. Along came the friendly
alligator in the . . . River, says, “I’ll help you across, so just get on top of my back.” But he’s
afraid. So he gets on his back, because he’s going to take him to the other side of the river, but he
gets afraid of the—the dog becomes afraid of the alligator, because the alligator kept opening up
his mouth and so he was scared poopless, so he pooped onto the alligators head and jumped off
and ran away. The end. No meat?
R:
No meat.
R:
No nothing.
Moderator: And no nothing. The moral of the story is be thankful.
R:
So that’s the end of the greedy dog.
Moderator: Be thankful for what you have.
R:
Mm-hmm.
R:
And be appreciative of people who help you and so don’t poop on them, but say thank
you instead.
R:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
R:
We have the exact same Korean version, but there was no alligator. But the dog barked
at the dog in the water to take the bigger piece and then lost his. That was the end. So if you are
greedy, then you're going to lose.
Moderator: What you have.
R:
Yeah, what you have.
R:
Yes.
Moderator: Wow, that’s a nice story. I like that one. Don’t be greedy. Don’t be greedy and
don’t be poopy.
R:
That’s it.
R:
That’s it, okay.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared is about a dog and meat.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 3 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 5.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
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PDF Text
Text
Lao Focus Group, story 4
Moderator: And so they were able to take a nap.
R:
They were too tired.
[Crosstalk]
...
Moderator: So what was outside?
R:
A gold. I guess while they were sleeping . . .
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: The rice field.
R:
Miracles.
Moderator: Miracle of the golden wheat or the rice crop.
...
Moderator: So the Buddha blessed them with a rich crop and so it’s golden and . . .
...
Moderator: I’ve never seen this before, this must be a miracle.
...
R:
But when they check out to see the gold, the whole field is full of gold and so they said,
oh, it cannot be mined, it is too much gold. So went to announce to the government, saying,
“Oh, this does not belong to me. You have to take it away, because it is not mine.”
Moderator: So they came and took the gold and piled it up. So there’s 12 stories of gold.
R:
Twelve foot. Foot.
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: To 12 feet full of gold.
...
Moderator: Oh, twelve by eight.
...
�Moderator: So when they came to collect it, the gold turned to rocks, because it wasn’t meant for
them and the people who came to collect it. It was meant for the farmer and his wife. And so if
they touched it, it was gold, but if someone else touched it, it turned to rock.
...
So the person who came to touch it said, “I don’t think it’s ours, because when we touched it, it
turned to stone. You touch it, see if it turns back to gold.”
...
So they—when they touched it, the couple, it turned back to gold again.
R:
Could they spend it?
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: So now what do we do? No one else can touch this. So that means that we’re the
only sole owner, because when we touch it, it’s gold, when anyone else touches it, it’s stone.
...
R:
Farmer, farmer.
...
R:
So she forgot the name of it. She said, I don’t know if it was the city farmer or the rice
farmer.
R:
The farmer, farmer.
[Crosstalk]
Moderator: The gold farmer. You can call that story the gold farmer.
R:
Yeah.
R:
The gold farmer.
...
Moderator: Can somebody translate?
Translator: Sure. The moral—I guess she’s saying the moral is that the truth from the heart and
the truth of being fair as far as whatever aspect of life, whether it be sales, whether it be
creating—just thinking about wealth, saving and all that, especially business partners, especially
husband and wife, friends, you know, be truthful. Be fair. Be honest.
R:
And they were truthful people.
�Translator: Yes, yes.
Moderator: So that means you have to be faithful to your partners.
R:
Yes.
Moderator: And true to your partners.
R:
Yes.
Moderator: So it’s just being true to yourself and to your relations?
Translator: So be truthful to what you do and what you say and everything will turn out the
way—yeah.
R:
Be truthful and honest in your relationships.
Translator: Yeah.
[Crosstalk]
Translator: Not just relationships, but what you do and what you say, you know.
Moderator: Just your essence.
R:
Power of giving, it’s called.
R:
Yes.
R:
In everything you do.
Moderator: Yeah. Don’t focus on material things too much, basically.
R:
Don’t be materialistic.
Moderator: Or it’ll just be stone.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story is about a farmer and his wife waking from their nap to find that Buddha blessed their rice field with gold.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 3 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 4.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
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PDF Text
Text
Lao Focus Group, story 3
Moderator: There are similar moral stories in the Buddhist scriptures and so that’s a similar one
where they use it as part of temple. So when they have the young students who come in that do
the Buddhist scriptures based on his life and those stories and then they do Lao stories that are
much more contextualized to the Lao villagers, depending on where they're at.
...
Moderator: So there’s a husband and wife.
...
Translator: His wife making a full, deliver a lunch for husband.
...
Translator: Every day.
Moderator: So the wife—there’s two couple, the husband and wife. The wife prepares food for a
lunch for her husband every day and delivers it every day.
...
Moderator: And so the husband is hungry, because he doesn’t have any food with him.
...
Moderator: So she was giving ohms to the temple first, before she was able to bring the food to
her husband.
...
Moderator: So his stomach was growling and he’s really hungry and it’s growling and he’s
rubbing his tummy and saying, “I’m really hungry. I’m famished.”
...
Moderator: And he’s like, I wonder where my wife is. Why is she a little bit late?
...
Moderator: And so when she came with the food, he couldn’t quite eat, because he’d lost his
appetite.
...
Moderator: About his appetite. She’s like, I’m sorry I’m late, because I had to go give ohms to
the monks first.
�...
Moderator: And then I had to come back home and steam some more rice for you to come give it
to you.
...
Moderator: The husband says, I’m grateful that you were able to gives ohms first.
...
Moderator: So part of the blessing is to get—the monk blesses the water that is sort of like the
christening version of the Christians and so for him, he took the Christian water and rubbed it all
over himself and then he wasn’t as hungry. Did I get that right?
R:
Yeah.
R:
No.
...
R:
She said that her husband—the monk—prior to that, the monk also went to the husband
to get food to . . . and then the husband doesn’t have any food to offer. The husband offered the
water from the well or to the monk and then the monk took that water to wash himself.
Moderator: Okay. Did you guys get that? So in the Lao culture, the monks come in the morning
with their bowl of arms to get—so this is their acts of compassion where people will make food
and prepare food and so this is their—the villagers’ chance to contribute to their next life. So
when he came around to the husband, he didn’t have any food, but he had fresh well water and
so the monk was able to take the water and cleanse himself. He didn’t have food to offer, but he
had water to offer. And so that was his ohms giving prior to his wife giving food to the monk.
...
Moderator: So they were both happy and grateful that they were able to contribute. So the
husband was able to contribute the water and be able to pray to Buddha and thank him.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potiential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared was wife delivering lunch late her husband because she gave alms to the monks first.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 3.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
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PDF Text
Text
Lao Focus Group, story 2
R:
She was—there’s a story about the mother and the son that he’s a farmer and the mother
is the one that’s supposed to bring the lunch to the son and one day the mother that bring the rice,
the lunch to the son, is late and he was too hungry and he was frustrated and he ended up hitting
his mother and kill her. So I mean, this story is teaching about the anger of youth that in that
moment, when you’re out of control, when you cannot hold yourself, and then you end up doing
something really bad and you're going to regret it in life.
R:
Do you remember how it was told?
R:
Um.
R:
He was eating the rice.
R:
Yeah.
R:
He didn’t finish it. Everything to fill up and he—too late to say sorry. He already kill his
mom.
R:
It escalated so quickly.
R:
Yes.
R:
And he build a statue in the temple for the mom—I kill my mom. He go pray that every
time he go to temple, my mom.
R:
This story, I can—I remember quite a bit, okay? So maybe I can . . .
R:
Yeah, tell the story from the beginning?
R:
I went to a temple, probably like seven or eight years old and I always hear this story all
the time. We tend to—when we’re young, we don’t know how to conserve. Not just the temple
part, but the food that we consume. A lot of times we’re wasteful. So the monk and the elder—
our father, mother always tell us, you know, don’t be wasteful, you know how . . . or whatever.
Moderator: Like one ball of rice.
R:
Yes. So the story begin when the mother, who’s trying to get the food ready for the son
and it’s the end of the harvest, okay, where the food is still being harvest, so we don’t have that
much. So the mother only have one handful, not even handful, probably . . .
Moderator: One bite.
R:
Yeah, one bite, and so he bring over and the mother already scared that it’s going to be
late, okay? Because it’s around noontime, because the son didn’t get to eat breakfast or anything
like that. Breakfast in our country is the big, big thing, you know? And the son skipped
breakfast, so he’s hungry after a long afternoon, hard work, you know, in the farm. Plowing and
all that. So he’s waiting for his mom. Finally, his mom show up. He said, “Why’d it take you
�so long?” He’s scolding his mom, you know, cursing and stuff like that, you know, right away,
what do we learn? You know, we learn that he’s disrespectful. We learn that he’s very
impatient. We learn that he’s really mean, okay? And basically the elder, from what I learned
from, and the monk that taught me, is that, you know, you're supposed to be the opposite.
So the summary of the story is that he—instead of focus on what she brought him and the
lunch, you know, only have salt and one bite. She didn’t even get to eat. She saved that bite,
you know, to give him. And when soon she brought that over and she was trying to explain she
didn’t—I mean, he didn’t want to hear what she had to say, so it just—you know, hit her, club
her and she died. After she died, now he’s still hungry. He look at the bite he’s about to eat, but
he could not eat. He realized that, you know, his impatience got the best of him and then, you
know, and killed his own mom and he wanted to say sorry, but he couldn’t. He wanted to eat,
but he couldn’t. You know, so the moral of the story is that it’s not what you want, it’s what you
have and make the best of it, I guess. Okay, like that. It’s really—the elder probably can tell
better than what I can.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
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The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potiential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared was about a son that got angry at his mother for bringing the lunch late and he ended up killing her.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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[2018]
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application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Lao Focus Group, story 2.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
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Text
Lao Focus Group, story 1
R:
Well, the story that you mentioned earlier, that’s one of them that I grew up with.
Another one is I believe what do you call the ten . . .
Moderator: Is it the—for the temple?
R:
No, no, no. There was a king challenging all the, you know.
R:
Other kingdoms?
R:
Yeah, the kingdoms to who can have the wealth that equals to ten mount. So they can
marry the daughter—I mean, the princess. That always been stuck in my head and of course,
some other folklores or ghost stories that always scared me, but it’s also funny too.
Moderator: Okay.
R:
But that particular one.
Moderator: So what’s the name of that one?
R:
I’m not sure. This is an old one, so I would have to ask the older generation. . . . Yes.
The king challenging all the warriors and whatnot, you know, he’s dying and he’s in need of—I
mean, the kingdom in need of another successor.
Moderator: Okay.
R:
And so the king put a flyer or whatever, announced, saying that whoever come up here,
ten mount of gold.
Moderator: Mm-hmm, and is it just a mount like a mountain?
R:
Yeah, mountain, . . .
Moderator: You know how the plane of jars where they have these big sort of vats?
R:
Well, in our country, we have—what do you call, the termites mound? It’s that big. So
each one—there was ten of them in there, so nobody has it. So [Simeon] had an idea and he’d
come up with—he went to get gold coins and place on the mound. So in the end, I mean, I’m
cutting story short, but I’m pretty sure the story that—I’m spoiling the story here—the older
generation can tell better. But basically, that’s what stuck in my head.
Moderator: Mm-hmm.
R:
So Simeon, long story short here, he placed all the gold into the ten mounds and then he
solved the riddle of what the king placed. So the moral of the story is, you know, he’s very
creative in his idea and he won the riddles. He won the challenge.
Moderator: Okay.
�R:
So it’s encourage, envision, motivation type of story for me and I always think of that
every time I’m coming to a challenge of something. I always place that story in saying, you
know, it’s not how you look at the problem. I mean, it’s not—the size of the problem, that’s
what I’m trying to say. It’s how you look at it and how you handle the problem. That’s always
been my . . .
Moderator: You can just say it in Lao and then we’ll get it translated.
R:
Okay, okay, yeah. Something like that.
R:
Mm-hmm.
Moderator: So this is one of the Simeon folktales that he grew up with and that he—is one
of his favorites.
Moderator: And so it’s another trickster story. How many Simeon folktales or trickster
stories are there?
R:
Oh, hundreds. Hundreds.
Moderator: So depending on which story you remember of you hear?
R:
Yeah.
Moderator: So there’s a collection of them?
R:
Yeah.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a Lao focus group meeting where a story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The story shared was about a king challenging all warriors and whatnot for a future successor to marry the princess.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lao Focus Group, story 1.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
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Text
Beatrice Lao
Beatrice:
Oh I discovered it as an adult. It was given to me my first year in law school
by a friend and it's The Little Prince. I have read it probably at least 30 times and I have
read it with my nieces and nephews and IStory 1
Speaker 1:
I haven't read it.
Beatrice:
-give it to everybody every kid who I come across as a gift.
Speaker 1:
That's the gist.
Speaker 1:
Why do you like The Little Prince?
Beatrice:
I like The Little Prince I think at the time it inspired me when I went to law
school 'cause I felt really out of place and the story of The Little Prince is a little prince who
lived in a tiny little planet who tended to a rose and he decided one day to explore the
universe outside of his planet and he was very scared and he met all kinds of people met a
king, he met a drunkard, he met a geographer and he in the end even though he went out to
discover what he thought was a very strange, intimidating world, he learned he was very
enriched by it and he still wanted to go back to his planet to be with his rose. There's more
to it than that but-
Beatrice:
-that story that story stuck with me and it's something that I share with other
people especially young people.
Speaker 1:
That's great 'cause as you were talking 'cause my mom would say that's what
Buddha was, he was a prince who went out to explore the world.
Beatrice:
Oh that's right yes, [inaudible 00:07:53] yeah, yeah that's right yeah. I hadn't
thought of that yeah.
Speaker 1:
It's similar right to all of those trials and tribulations but you go back to
yourself yeah so I never I'm going to have to read that.
Beatrice:
Oh yeah 'cause there's so many stories out there but that one definitely-
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a meeting with a Lao community member from the Lowell area where one Lao story was shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian folktales book. The story was about a prince who lived in a tiny planet but one day he went out to explore the universe. The prince met all kinds of people and was enriched with information.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 1 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CWilinsky_Lao 3 isolated from individual transcripts.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
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Text
Chanthone Seng interview
Jun: My father and mother told me stories about ... A person who was a tiger, they took
the skin of the tiger and wore it as a ... Taking the skin of the tiger and put it on the shirts.
Prints of the tiger on the shirt. So they said long time ago that the people who put the pieces
of the skin of the tiger onto their shirts end up becoming a tiger.
Story 1
Jun:
The one that is about the young lady that smells like a flower.
Story 2
Jun:
No. The hair that smells nice. So she was born with beautiful-smelling hair.
Interviewer: Why do you like that story?
Jun: Because it's a story about the mother that was ... She was an orphan. Her mother and
father died, and she had to take care of herself. And she has one child. So that's what
happened.
Jun: She had to go and forage for food in the forest. So she searched for mushrooms and
bamboos and plants so that she could eat.
Interviewer: Because and why do you like that story?
Jun: It helps people understand to be patient and persevere ... like a survivor. Resilient.
So that they can learn how to find food and survive in the jungle.
Jun: There's a story about the family that had seven kids. The mother and father are poor
and they don't have money. So they let the kids go and let them live in the forest. So now
they turned into gorillas in the jungle and they're not human. So they finally were able to
farm and get some food so that they went back to get their kids. But the kids have all grown
hairy. They no longer know how to speak like humans. So the mom and dad cried because
they've lost their children. So they would get food and throw it at the bottom of the tree
where their children, who are now monkeys, live. And that's the end of the story.
Story 3
Jun: The second story I would tell you is the story about the girl who was born with the
pretty-smelling hair. The mom and dad birthed a beautiful daughter that had long, flowing
hair that smelled very beautiful. They don't have much money so they collected charcoal to
sell. They would sell the charcoal to buy food and water, or nourishment for their one
daughter.
Story 4
Jun: The daughter went to school, but one day the mother and father died, and then she
was left alone by herself to grow up alone. So she did what her parents did. She went and
foraged in the forest and found food to eat there and found charcoal to sell to make a living.
�Jun: But one day she had a child, and then the villagers would ask, "This is strange, how
can a woman have a child without the father? Where is the father?" The mother had a
secret. The child would ask, "Where's my father?" as she was growing up. As she grew up,
the mother kept the secret of her father's heritage until she was growing old and almost
about to die.
Jun: Her daughter was 18 years old when she told him. So she started this story. So she's
dying and so she tells the daughter that, "When I was younger I went to the forest and I
drank from this water fountain that was a magical water fountain." The water was a hot
spring that came from the rock." So when she drank from the springs that came from the
rock, she became pregnant with the daughter. When she was there by herself, there was no
human. "There was just an elephant. It was the king of the wild elephants. So if you wanna
know your father, go into the forest where there is the water from the rock, and you will
find your father."
Jun: She said that the father was in the mountains by the rock side. So she went there
and she saw this elephant who was sleeping there. So she asked him, "Are you my father?"
The elephant replied, "When were you my child? When did I beget you?" She told the story
about what her dying mother said, saying that she had come here and that when she drank
the water she saw no one. So she said, "Yes, you're right. I did pee on that rock and your
mother drank my pee."
Interviewer: Oh, God.
Jun: So the elephant is gonna test her to see if he's the real daughter. "So the test to see
whether you're my child or not," said the king elephant, "is I need for you to walk out into
that ledge and cross between these two rocks. Between the two rocks is a cliff that falls. A
true daughter of mine can walk over the rocks without falling over. But if you're not my
daughter, you'll fall over to your death."
Jun: So she was able to walk over to the other side of the rock cliff. So that validated that
yes, he was her father. Then she just stayed and lived with her father for the rest of her
years.
Interviewer: So why do you want that story known?
Jun: This is a story about the heritage and to know where you're coming from. So you
never forget your father. Never forget who your father is. It's like your DNA. The story of
your heritage, where you come from, from your father and your mother. So the father took
care of her. So this is the story to tell children to remember who their parents are and who
takes care of them.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a meeting with Lowell area Lao community members where Lao stories were shared. A total of four stories were shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian folktales book. The first story shared was about a human who took a tiger's skin and wore it. The second story was about a young girl whose hair smelled like flowers. The third story was poor family with seven children, and left the children in the forest. The fourth story was about an orphan girl who got pregnant from magic water in the forest.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 2 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CWilinsky_Lao 2 isolated from individual transcripts.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
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Text
Chanthy & Kaen
Speaker 2:
There's one story about Nang La and Nang Lun which are the two names,
they were brothers.
Story 1
Speaker 2:
Speaker 2:
What is your favorite story?
There was one story, is my favorite. It's about these siblings.
Speaker 2:
Okay. So there's one story about ... So it's a story about two girls. They make
silk skirts that they sell to people. So they sell the silk to help their families. So that's the
only one I remember from when I was younger.
Speaker 2:
So that's the story that I remember when I was seven or eight years old.
Don't remember the details but that's the story about the two sisters that helped their
family.
Speaker 2:
Story 2
Let's see. Okay. There once was a dog. [Foreign language 00:58:24].
Speaker 2:
Okay. See, this is the one. Here, let me see, [foreign language 01:07:59]. Okay.
[Foreign language 01:08:03].
Speaker 1:
[Foreign language 01:08:06].
Speaker 2:
Is the dog in the river, [foreign language 01:08:13]. So that's his shadow,
[foreign language 01:08:18]. So [Foreign language 01:08:23].
Speaker 1:
Speaker 2:
01:08:33].
[Foreign language 01:08:24].
[Foreign language 01:08:28]. And that's it, the end. [Foreign language
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The transcript of a meeting to share Lao stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of a meeting with Lowell area Lao community members where Lao stories were shared. A total of two stories were shared for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian folktales book. The first story shared was about two siblings making silk shirts to sell to support their family. The second story was about a dog. Only the English is transcibed and the Lao is not transcibed in the transcipt.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 1 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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CWilinsky_Lao 1 isolated from individual transcripts.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Laotians
-
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5d8c9bb251a7be487b688cec3bbc62df
PDF Text
Text
Cambodian Folktales
A Little Girl
A Little Girl, she’s four years old. She lived with an old lady when her parents went to work. She
went around the block, picked up all the short sticks and the wood for fire woods. They cooked
rice in a big, big frying pan and used the fire woods. And they gave her the crust, or the bottom
of the cooked rice.
And what she’d get, a piece like that and she bring to give the boy when they bring the rice on
their head. The whole by the boy, put away the part where they cut underneath. That gets put
away. And when they’re hungry and get a piece here, a piece here, all there, and have one little
piece left in hand. And the brother wanted no more because he . . . all away. Because the whole .
. . and he eat it, eat her finger and bites her finger and bleeding and she cry. And what they do?
The soldiers who see it cry. “Tell her to stop crying,” because it hurt so bad. She just . . . and
shaking. And they put her in the bag of rice and hang her in . . .
And . . . she passed out in their rice bag. When her mom came back from work, heard her
daughter hang up there. And the people, they whistled and the soldier, they ran past and one of
the soldiers, they loved her also when they lived there. They took her out and gave her to her
mom. Her mom thought she was going to die. It was just so hard. But later then the girl was
alive.
This was a true story that happened in the village in Cambodia.
Don’t hate
There’s a guy who is afraid of lawsuit. He just hates it, just a lawsuit, a general lawsuit. So, he
goes up into the palm tree to get away from all the lawsuits. And he is thinking, “You know, as
I'm thinking here, I'm going to make the basket to weave from the palms. And then I can sell
that. And then I’ll get a chicken. And then the chicken will let me afford to buy an ox. An ox will
afford me to buy a servant, and if the servant doesn’t work, I'm going to kick him,” and then ahh,
he falls down. And as he falls, he grabs on to the tree, and he’s hanging by the palm leaves.
Meanwhile—it’s just like dun-dun-dun. So meanwhile, another guy who hates to step on the
poop everywhere, is riding the head of the elephant to avoid the poop. Comes along this guy,
dangling from the leaf, saying, “Help me. Help me.” He replies, “Okay. I’ll stand on top of the
elephant’s head and I’ll try to get you down.” While he’s doing that, he stepped on the elephant,
and the elephant thinks the movement means to go, so the elephant goes. And now they have two
men dangling by the thread, as the other one, the Mr. “I'm afraid of lawsuit,” is afraid of what’s
happening next. And then that’s when he poops his pants, right? And poops on top of the guy
who hates the poop. And then four people come, and they shout, “Help us. Help us. We’re
dangling here by the
palm.
The four people take their scarves and tie them together for them to jump down. They can jump
down safely, landed safely. The guys are okay, and then they go and sue each other.
�Moral: If you hate something, you’ll meet it. If you hate, your fate will meet you.
The snail and the
Hare
There’s a snail living in a pond. The snail heard that a hare is very clever, but he is very cunning.
Then, while the hare stops to drink the water from the pond, the snail yells at the hare saying
that, “You cannot come and drink the water from my pond.” “Hey, that doesn’t bother you. I
drink the water from this pond since I was born.” And then the rabbit insults the snail. “The
crawling snail-ey, slowly, slowly animal. You cannot one day crawl the length once I hopefully,
the lengths what I hop.” And then the snail hearing this one, he is so mad at the rabbit or the
hare. “If you say that you insulted me that I could not crawl in one day to the length of your hop,
so now we compete. We are running a race. Let’s compete.”
The hare takes up the challenge. “How can we set up the rule?” the rabbit said. And the snail
says that, “I agree not to live in this pond anymore any longer, if I lose this race.” And the rabbit
says that,” I pledge that I won’t come and drink the water from this pond if I lose you in this
race.” And then tomorrow, the next morning, these two lovely animals start up the race. And
then the rabbit or the hare run around the circumference of the pond, and then the snail stays in
the water. And running for a while, the rabbit didn’t see any snail running behind him or her,
yelling back, “Hey, the snail, slowly snail. Where are you?” And then the snail knowing we
cannot run the race, cannot compete to win the race with the rabbit, and then they set up the
tricks. And then that snail in the back telling the snail in the front, “When the rabbit yell at us,
you at the front say, “Coo.” That mean, I'm here. When the rabbit says, “Where are your the
slowly snail?” The next snail right to the rabbit or the hare say, “I am here, coo.”
Running for a while, the rabbit’s looking around didn’t see any snail, asking then, “Hey, so now
slowly snail, where are you right now?” Then right next to him say, “Coo, I am here.” And
hearing this one he gets mad and he just keeps running very fast. Almost reaching to the finish
line, one round, one lap, and the rabbit’s yelling to ask for the snail, “Where are you the slowly,
slowly snail?” And then the snail right next to him say, “I am here, coo.” And then the rabbit
know that he lost the race. He lies down right next to the finish line, because he knows that the
snail is right there at the finish line before him. Then all the snails win the race and then they stay
in the pond whereas the hare no longer comes to visit the pond or drinking the water from the
pond. So, they drink the water from the dew instead.
Moral: Don’t judge others. Teamwork can create power.
Don’t Open Your Mouth
So like back in the old time, the shell of the turtle is not crackling like map or whatever kinds of
like that. The shell is so smooth. The turtle lives in a pond and a couple of ducks come to play or
feed themselves in the pond. The turtle asks the couple of ducks, “Why are you coming here?”
And then a couple of the ducks told the turtle that, “Oh, we come here to collect supplies for the
�party on the top of the palm tree.” And then the turtle asks, “Could I be invited to come to the
party?” “Yes!” And the couple of ducks tell the turtle that, “How can you fly up to the top of the
tree because you don’t have any wings and know how to fly?” The three animals discussed to
find ways to go up to the top of the tree. And a couple of ducks got an idea. He got a stick. One
duck used their beak, so each duck used their beak to hold a stick and then the turtle can bite the
end of the stick. The couple of duck can fly the turtle up there.
The ducks warn the turtle that, “You must not open your mouth and speak, okay?” And then the
turtle agrees, “Yes, yes, I will not. I will not speak out.” Now, the ducks prepare themselves with
sticks and the turtle bites on the end of the other stick. The couple of duck fly up. And then up
there on top of the tree, the other ducks are amazed by seeing this turtle coming up to the party
too. And then they yell in unison say, “Oh, the turtle come to you. Brother come too!” And then
the turtle is so happy. He replied, “Yeah, I’m coming too!” As soon as the turtle open his mouth,
“Yes, I’m coming too!” He falls down on the ground. Then his shell hit the ground on a rock or a
stick. That’s why his shell right now look like a piece of puzzle.
Moral: Keep quiet even though you are happy, or you are mad. Be quiet.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The document with four Khmer stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The document with four Khmer stories for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The first story is titled, "A Little Girl," and is about a little girl who when around the block to pick up small sticks and firewoods to cook rice. The second story is titled, "Done't hate," and is about a guy who hates lawsuit, and the second guy hates poop, and they both meet what they hate. The third story is titled, "The Snail and the Hare." The fourth story is titled, "Don't Open Your Mouth," and is about keeping quiet even when you're happy.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 3 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tham - isolated Cambodian folktales.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
-
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0b6e43a99b68ee6d86aea5e78558069a
PDF Text
Text
Burmese Folktales
Swine, Pig and Lion
There are three animals. Fox is very witty, and very cunning. The pig, the swine and the lions
are very friendly. They are best friends. They love each other. But one day, the fox just goes to
the pig. He just goes and says the bad things about his friends. “Why do you love each other?
This guy is trying to kill you. He told me. You don’t believe me, right?”. “No, he is to be my
best friend all the time.” “Oh, whether you believe me or not, one day you will know.” And now
he goes to the lion and tells about the bad things about the swine again. “The lion is going to kill
you.” Finally, they misunderstand each other. These three best friends, they do not understand
each other anymore because they believe too much about the words from outside. Finally, they
fight each other. They fight each other. Before they die, the fox comes and eats them all.
Moral of the story: Don’t listen to the lying outsiders
The White Elephant
Once upon a time there was a lonely man without family. Since he was so poor, he had nothing
to eat. He had to work for the king as a servant. He had to work very hard as a servant. He had
to do everything of what the king asked him to do. He never refused. He never had a chance to
refuse. Whatever the king asked, he had to do. One day, the king heard that in the jungle, a
white elephant appeared.
The king told him, “You have to go and capture this one. I have given you all things you need.
This time, you have to repay the gratitude by going and capturing the white elephant.” Oh yeah.
“When you come back, you have to come back with the white elephant. If you come back not
with the white elephant, you will be dead.”
He was very upset, but he didn’t have a choice to refuse. He went into the jungle, he was so
afraid, so he even could not look for the white elephant. The white elephant knows how that guy
is feeling. The white elephant had the power. He was so surprised, and he just turn his . . . and
then he looked at and he saw the white elephant. And then he cried a lot. He was crying and
weeping, and he told the white elephant, “I’m so afraid of you, but I have no choice. The king
ordered me to capture you, so I don’t know how to capture you. Can you help me?”
He didn’t want to capture but he was so afraid of the king. If you do not go with me, I dare not
go back to the king anymore. If I don’t go back to the king, how can I live? How can I survive
in the jungle? And then the white elephant can speak. The white elephant said, “I came to you,
don’t be afraid of me. I came here just to help you. Just follow me.” The white elephant took
him into the deep jungle. The white elephant took him into the very, very big Bo Tree.
Many kinds of animals are very heavily, they are playing, and they love each other, having fun
there. So the lonely guy, he was so upset before, but when he see these elephants were very
happily, so he forget everything about his feeling. When he remembers, he turns around and
look, he didn’t see the white elephant anymore. And then he was leaning on the banyan tree
because he was so tired. Then he falls asleep. He got a dream. He had a dream. In his dream,
1
�the white elephant told him, just go back to the king. Go tell your king, say, “You will get the
white elephant, what you want.” Just go and tell the king, “The white elephant that you want,
you will get it soon.” In his dream, the white elephant told him. “Before you get the white
elephant, you have to do something. The thing that you have to do is that you have to give away
all the belongings that you have. All the money, all the treasure you have. Just give it to the
poor, the troubled people. You have to give it away to all the people, and then you will get the
white elephant that you want.”
And then finally he woke up. He was thinking if I go back without the white elephant, the king
will kill me. He was afraid of the king. If I don’t go back, what I’m supposed to do here in the
jungle alone. He was thinking all the time. Finally, he decided to go back. The king was so
mad when he saw him without the white elephant, and he took all his knives out. And he
apologized. At the time, the king was so angry and took all his swords. At the time, he said that
he apologized, “Before you kill me, just listen one or two words from me. So let me tell, only
after that you can kill me,” he said. He said, “I met with the white elephant.” So when the king
heard he met with the white elephant, his anger cooled a little bit. And then he said as in his
dream, “So whatever you have, just give away to the poor people. If you donate everything,
every money you have, finally if you have nothing you will get the thing you want, the white
elephant. I will go and get it for you,” he said. “Are you sure?” the king said. “Yes, sure,”
because he really wanted to get the white elephant. That’s why he gave away all the things that
he possessed.
The king told him that, “I did everything what you told me, so this is your time, your turn.” And
he said, “Okay. Yes.” And then he went to the jungle. When he went to the jungle, so the white
elephant was ready waiting for him. And then he took the lonely guy on his shoulder or his back
He saw the white elephant and the white elephant was with him readily. The white elephant
already knew why he was coming back.
The king announced all of his people to welcome the white elephant with a bang. Music or
something like that. They played music very loudly when they saw the white elephant. The
people from the other countries around that area, they heard the news that the white elephant
lived in that area. Everyone wanted to come and see the white elephant. Because it is very rare.
A white elephant is very rare, that’s why they wanted to see. When the white elephant came into
the king palace, the music was playing very loudly. At the time, the white elephant told the
audience, the people, “My name is not the White King. My name is the Prince of Peace.”
Lots of people wanted to come and see the white elephant. That’s why everyday people come all
the time and to see the white elephant. Whenever they come, they bring something like a tribute,
like a present, offerings. Like gold and money, a lot of things they give. Every people, they
come and give like this. The king become richer than before.
After he gives, the Prince of Peace, the white elephant summoned and called the lonely guy and
told him, “I have been living in the palace for many years, so I’m also getting old now. I have to
go back to my place.” He also told the lonely guy, “In that country, everything’s ready.
Everything’s developing. You have peace and everything, so I don’t need to stay here anymore.
I have to go back.” And then the lonely guy went and told the king. Then the king celebrated a
farewell party for the elephant. When the music is coming and the white elephant took the lonely
2
�guy on his back, and then he just flied and disappeared. The lonely guy didn’t have to worry
about food anymore.
Moral: If you are generous and can give away your treasure to others in need, you will have
peace, wisdom and wealth.
If you keep your promise
Once upon a time there was a grandpa and grandson. And one day, the grandchild to his
grandpa, “Hey Grandpa, you told me that you are going to tell me about the story.” “Yeah, I will
tell you. I have only one grandson. Of course, I will tell,” he said. And then the grandpa told
about his life story. He told him that, “I was very poor when I was young. I had only one sister.
We really had a hard time to survive.” And then one day, he decided to go and work in another
place. There were two roads to reach to that area. One was the shortcut and the other one was
the normal road that people went. If he went the shortcut, it would take him only one day. If he
went the other way, it would take him two or three nights. They had to sleep on the way two or
three nights. He dared not to use the shortcut because it was dangerous sometimes. He just went
to the normal way. On the way, he saw a rich guy in that village. He got a job from that rich
guy.
After one month, someone came and told him that his father was going to die soon, so he had to
go back. “If you don't go back, you will not have a chance to see your dad.” And so, at the time,
he did not get any wages and any salary yet, but he told his boss. The rich guy at the time, he
didn’t have any money in his hand, but he really felt pity on that guy. Finally, he gave a buffalo
to the guy and his sister.
This time, on the way back to home, they chose the shortcut because they wanted to see their
father. If they went in the normal way, it would take two or three days and they couldn’t have
the chance to see their father. No matter how hard it was, they would choose the shortcut. They
were riding the buffalo. The sister and the brother were taking the buffalo for the whole day.
The buffalo was very tired the whole way. Yeah, in the middle way, in the middle they saw a
very big patty field of rice. The buffalo was very hungry. It ate the rice there.
In the middle of the field, there is a small hut. They heard a voice. They didn’t see anything, but
they heard the voice coming out from the hut. And then they heard a girl telling her grandma,
“Grandma, Grandma, you see the buffalo is eating all our patty.” The grandma came out of the
hut. “Who is that?” she shouted. And then they were so afraid, and they apologized to that
grandma. They told that grandma about their real story and then they apologized the grandma.
“Please don’t do us anything. Please forgive us. Let us go back to see our father. So finally,
after the funeral, we will come back and help you for the harvest.”
That grandma told him, “You have to keep your promise.” “Oh yes, we’ll keep our promise.
We’ll come back and help you for the harvest.” Then, she let them go.
When they went back home, they saw the corpse of their dad. After the funeral, as they
promised, they come back to help the harvest. They helped all the harvest until they finished
everything. “We keep our promise, so let us go back now”. The grandma told them, “Don’t go
3
�back. I need you more. I’m also getting very old. I’m very old. I have no children, so I will
give all my things to you.” Finally, they got everything from the grandma. And then their lives
became better.
Moral: If you keep your promise, your life will be better in the future.
The story of cuckoo bird
Once upon a time, there was a couple. They have seven children, six sons and one daughter.
At that time, around that year, the village had robbery. That’s why most of the people did not
have time to sleep. They had to check whether the robbers were coming. But the youngest
daughter, who their parents love her very much. The other six brothers also love her very much.
She slept a lot. When she slept, nobody could wake her up.
In the Karen village, they didn’t have the pillow, but they use the . . . , the very long . . . All
the family use the … as a pillow. If the thieves or robbers came, the mother just took it and
everybody woke up. But one day, the robber came, but the parents took the pillow out. All the
other boys woke up and the girl didn’t wake up. She was left alone at home. All the other
people left and ran. She was around about six years old at the time, so she always nagged to
mom to go and slept with her friend in someone’s house. The parents never let her go and sleep
there because she slept all the time. That’s why. In case the robbers come, she might be in
trouble, and that’s why the parents never let her go and sleep in someone’s house.
But on that night, she was nagging all the time, all the time, but she doesn’t want to hear that
mom doesn’t want to . . . and she let her go and sleep in the house. But unfortunately, on that
night, the robber come and rob the house. All the family members left and ran away. She was
left alone at the house because nobody took her. She was only six year at the time that she was
left in the house alone there.
On the night when the thief and the robber came, she was beaten very badly, so the thief and the
robbers forced her to give them money. She said, “I don’t have the money.” “Come on, tell me
your parents’ name. You have to ask money from your parents, otherwise you will be killed.” So
from that time, she was trying to call her mom. Cuckoo, cuckoo. This is like, “Mom, mom,
mom.” Yeah, that’s why wherever she goes, she was trying to call her mom’s name.
“Where are you now?” Finally, she was beheaded by the thief.
She was beheaded and later she was incarnated into a cuckoo bird.
Moral: Children should not sleepover.
4
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
The document with four Burmese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The document with four Burmese stories for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The first story is titled, "Swine, Pig, and Lion. The second story is titled, "The White Elephant" and is about a king's servant who went into the forest to capture the white elephant. The third story is titled, "If you keep your promise" and about a grandpa telling his life story to his grandson. The fourth story is titled, "The story of cuckoo bird."
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 4 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Tham - isolated Burmese Folktales
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Burmese
Documents
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/4199047d5ccbe866ad81abba450cd027.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=MAuGOLsRKLxJdRkoa52UiDeTEgCLcQUKJBGTuIElbe2m9wJRPwYvY9Po2x9Rrkhhn46Nvhq3UU5NxceVnhJrk-rbLEqI4QPpuCcfvfN0s1LNO%7EFI%7E4NFg5W79GH-HnldEC1WVi5b3GuP%7Egz9WidYGNup9bcWuSyMAjcmtrsveWYAS91A3O7TvKRtcJXl7NpdopbuNcBawgXGTUzY6FwtiLP%7Esbd6eoDjaQWxw18nTV9kB5LqNa71tR6unJR8iT1MvB%7EGPDOitpGF2nQrJ8mt3fGrozkMf-nJFlRLIHSkIYhh4DIP2qEkfv-udQlBo5yWBalV0DjmZgT-kE4OIWyJgA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
137e8b965c432ce8082756d7066557c0
PDF Text
Text
Long Long
Time Ago
in Southeast
Asia
TALES FROM BURMA,
CAMBODIA, LAOS,
.
AND VIETNAM
��A
Long Long
Time Ago
in Southeast
Asia
TALES FROM
BURMA, CAMBODIA,
LAOS, AND VIETNAM
�Copyright © 2018 by MinJeong Kim, Allyssa McCabe, Phitsamay Uy.
All rights reserved.
�Table of Contents
Overview of Project ............ . ........... . ........... 5
Lowell, Massachusetts ... . .. . ... . ..... .. ........... . ... . 5
Burma . . .... . .. . ..................................... 7
"The White Elephant" . . . ....... . . . .... . ........... . ..... 8
Cambodia . .... ... ... .. .. ............................ 24
"Don't Open Your Mouth" .... . ........... . .... . ...... . . 25
"Why the Rabbit Doesn't Drink from the Pond" . .. .......... 34
Laos .... . . .. . .. . . .. . ............... . .. . ............ 47
"The Greedy Dog and the Meat" ...... .. .. .. .. . .. . . . .. . .. .48
Viet Nam . ...... . ... . . . ........................... . . 62
"The Golden Starfruit Tree" ...................... . . . . . .. 63
"A Big Pot of Gold" ... . .. . .. . . . .......... . . . .......... 74
Biographies ........................ ... ... . ....... . . . .. 90
�4
�Overview of Project
We are Minjeong Kim, Allyssa McCabe, and Phitsamay Uy, professors
at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who have long had independent
interests in collecting folktales from diverse cultures. We all teach at the
University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is home to
numerous immigrant and refugee communities, including many individuals
from Cambodia, Viet Nam, Burma, and Laos. We noted the lack of reading
materials representative of those cultures and decided to rectify that. We
received a Creative Economy Grant from the University of Massachusetts
President's office to collaborate with the Southeast Asian community-based
organizations in Lowell (Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, Saydanar, Thong Phamduy & the Vietnamese Language School, Wat Buddhabhavana) to collect folktales from those four community groups. Professional
illustrators and art students from the university illustrated the folktales. This
book is the result of our collective efforts. We would like to express deep
appreciation to all the community members, organization staff, students,
and the President's Office for their support of this project.
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell, Massachusetts is a mid-sized city with a population of a little
over 100,000. The Merrimack River joins the Concord River in the city,
and there are many waterfalls, rapids, dams, and canals throughout which
made it desirable for the location of industries dependent on water power as
an energy source. Lowell was founded in the 1820s and named for Francis
Cabot Lowell, a key figure in the Industrial Revolution who secretly studied
textile technology in Great Britain and brought that technology to what became Lowell. In fact, Lowell is known as the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution. In only thirty years, Lowell became the biggest industrial
center of the United States, with a particular focus on textile manufacturing.
5
�Due to its many industries, immigrants to America were attracted by
the possibility of work, which has resulted in a very rich cultural mix in
Lowell. The city has seen many waves of immigrants, successively: Irish
people in the 1840s and 1850s were followed by French Canadians in
the 1860s and 1870s, and then by Greek, Polish, Portuguese, and Jewish
people. In more recent times, immigrants from Southeast Asia have settled
in Lowell, including people from Burma (now known as Myanmar),
Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam-the countries whose tales fill this book.
The city is host to many immigrants from South America, including Brazil,
Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. Increasingly the city has attracted
immigrants from various parts of Africa.
Lowell's history as a city of immigrants and refugees has resulted in
a number of community-based organizations that promote celebrations
of cultural arts and traditions from various countries of origin. There are
museum exhibits, statues, and other memorials dedicated to the various
immigrants to Lowell throughout the city. Organizations that provide
direct social services to the Southeast Asian communities include Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, Lao Family Mutual Association, and
SayDaNar Community Development Center. Faith-based institutions also
play a strong role in Lowell's Southeast Asian communities. For example,
there are four different Buddhist temples in Lowell (one Vietnamese: Chua
Tuong Van Lowell, two Cambodian: Lowell Wat Khmer and The Glory
Buddhist Temple, and one Lao: Watlao Mixayarama of New England).
Saint Patrick Catholic Church provides worship every weekend in five languages: Spanish, Vietnamese, Burmese, Cambodian, and English. Lowell
is home to the second largest population of Cambodian Americans in the
U.S. and is nationally known for its Southeast Asian Water Festival. The
Angkor Dance Troupe is renowned for perfonning traditional Cambodian
arts. Every year, Lowell celebrates the Vietnamese Lunar New Year or Tet
on January/early February and Cambodian, Lao, and Thai New Year on
April 13 - 15th.
6
�ClflNA
Burma
Burma, currently known as Myanmar, is predominantly a
Buddhist country, rich in natural resources. It is considered
one of the most resource rich countries in Asia. Bunn a is
the largest country in Southeast Asia with a total land area
of 676,577 square kilometers. The population is estimated
to be 53 million. There are 135 national groups living in
the country. Geographically, it is located between the two
most populous nations in the world--China and India.
Other neighboring countries are Thailand on the southeast,
Laos on the east, and Bangladesh on the west.
7
�The White Elephant
oocS§1lGCY.:Y5
A folktale from Burma
§+'1?~='{)~(98
A long, long time ago, there was a lonely man in a village in
Burma. He had no parents, no family , no relatives. He was so poor
he had nothing to eat. He had to find a job. So he went to work for
the king as a servant. He had to work very hard as a servant. He had
to do everything the king asked him to do . He never refused. He
never had a chance to refuse . Whatever the king asked, he had to do .
�One day, the king heard that somewhere in the jungle a white elephant had
appeared. "A white elephant is very rare and special in our country," the king
said. The king said to the lonely man, "You must capture this white elephant! I
have given you work. I have given you food . So you have to repay me. When
you come back, you have to come back with the white elephant. If you don ' t
bring me the white elephant, you will die."
'
�The lonely man was very upset because the jungle was very dangerous . But he
could not refuse. He went off to the dangerous jungle. He was so afraid he. could not
even look at things. He just walked with his head down. He did not notice the
monkey. He did not notice the beautiful flowers . He did not notice the ancient ruins .
He just looked down at the dirt.
�I
Boom! He bumped into something big and round and hard . Was
it a tree?
All of a sudden, it was raining .
He,looked up .
�He saw the white elephant. The white elephant was pouring
water on the lonely man.
�The white elephant had a special power. He understood people's feelings. He understood how the
lonely guy felt. The white elephant understood that
the lonely man was in trouble.
The lonely man was crying and weeping and he told
the white elephant, "I'm so afraid of you, but I have
no choice. The king ordered me to capture you, and I
am also afraid of the king. He said that ifl do not
bring you to him, he will kill me. If I do not go back,
I cannot survive in this jungle. I don't want to capture
you. I don't know how to capture you. Can you help
me?"
13
�The white elephant said, "I came to you. Do not be afraid of me. I came here just to
save you . Just follow me ."
So the white elephant took the lonely man into the deep jungle. The white elephant
took him to a very, very, very big Bo tree. They sat under the very, very, very big Bo
tree in the shade. The lonely man leaned on the Bo tree.
�The lonely man saw all kinds of animals there. They played with each
other. They loved each other. They had fun with each other. For a
moment, the lonely man forgot all his troubles . The lonely man was
tired. He fell asleep .
�In his dream, the white elephant appeared and told him , "Just go back to
the king. Tell your king that he will meet me. But he has to do something foi:me first. "
The lonely man went back to the king even though he was afraid the king
would kill him because the white elephant was nowhere to be seen .
�The king was angry and got all his swords and all his knives. The lonely man
apologized to the king and begged him, "Please listen to me before you kill me. I
met the white elephant."
When the king heard that the lonely man had met with the white elephant, his
anger cooled a little bit.
The lonely man continued, "The white elephant wants you to take all your
money and all of your treasure and give it away to the poor people. If you finally
have nothing, you will get what you want. You will get the white elephant. I will
go and get him for you.
"Are you sure?" the king said.
"Yes, I am sure. This is what the white elephant wanted me to tell you."
�I .
,:t::'
~'
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\
:
The king desperately wanted the white elephant. So he gave away all
his possessions to the poor. The king told the lonely man , "I did everything that you told me to do. Now it is your turn ." And he said, "Okay .
Yes."
18
�The lonely man went back to the jungle. The white elephant was waiting for
him . The elephant took the lonely guy on his shoulder.
GOOOOONNNNNGGGGG!
The king welcomed the white elephant and introduced him to all the people.
There was loud music to celebrate. People from all around heard the news that
the white elephant lived in the king' s village. Everyone wanted to come and see
the white elephant. A white elephant is very rare and very special ,
All of a sudden, the white elephant told everyone, "My name is not the White
Elephant. My name is not the White King. My name is the Prince of Peace."
�Lots of people came to see the Prince of Peace. Whenever they came, they brought presents. They brought gold
and money and many other treasures. The king became
richer than before.
�One day, the Prince of Peace--the white elephant--called the lonely guy . He told
the lonely guy, "I.have been living in the palace for many, many ~ears now. I'm
getting old now. I have to go back to my place. Back home, everything is ready for
me. You have peace and many riches, so I don't need to stay here anymore. I have
to go back."
The lonely guy told the king that the white elephant wanted to go home. Once
again, the king celebrated the white elephant. Once again, there was loud music.
There was a parade to say goodbye. There was a big feast. While the music was
playing, the white elephant took the lonely guy on his shoulders.
�-·.
They flew away and disappeared. The lonely guy
never worried about food again.
�23
�ClllNA
-\ -
Cambodia
Cambodia is a country in Mainland Southeast Asia. It is tucked
between Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is about the size of the State
of Oklahoma. Its capital city is Phnom Penh with a population of about
1.5 million. In 2017, Cambodia's total population was about 16 million. Cambodia is famous for its many magnificent ancient monuments
including Angkor Wat. On its tricolored national flag, Angkor Wat is
proudly displayed with three of the five elegant lotus-shaped towers
symbolizing Mount Meru or the sacred cosmological mountain on
Earth. Most Cambodians speak Khmer, an old language of the Khmer
Empire that lasted from the 9th to 15th century. Cambodians celebrate
many festivals throughout the year; the Khmer New Year is in the middle of April. Most Cambodians observe Buddhism and enshrine it as
the national religion in the country's constitution. In the past 64 years
after gaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia has gone
through many regime changes that killed millions of its own citizens
and properties. Currently Cambodia is at peace with a king as its head
of state and a prime minister as the country's leader.
24
�Don't Open Your Mouth, a Cambodian folktale
ubi:Jb~1untfl?il!J1M:
(1fp~ SITT Sl§f)
Long ago, the shell of the turtle was smooth, so smooth, smooth as glass.
It did not have cracks like a map. The turtle lived in a pond.
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�One day a couple of ducks came to play and feed themselves in the pond.
The turtle asked these ducks, "Why do you come here?"
The ducks replied, "We come here to collect supplies for the party on the
top of the palm tree ."
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�The three animals talked about how the turtle could go up to the top of the tree.
28
�One duck got an idea. He picked up a stick with his beak. Another duck
used her beak to hold that stick at the other end. The ducks told the turtle to
bite tl1e stick in tl1e middle so tl1ey could fly him up to the top of the tree. The
ducks lay down the stick to warn the turt] e, "You must not open your mouth
and speak, okay?"
The turtle agreed, "Yes, I will not speak out."
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�Now the ducks grabbed the stick again. The turtle bit the stick in the
middle. The ducks flew up and up almost to the top of the tree. Other ducks
at the top of the tree were amazed to see this turtle coming up to the party.
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30
�All the ducks yelled, "Oh the turtle comes to us. Brother, do come too." The
turtle was so happy . He replied, "Yeah, I'm coming too."
As soon as the turtle opened his mouth to say that he was coming too, he fell
down, down, down.
All the way to the ground.
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�Then he hit a rock that shattered his shell.
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�That is why today the turtle 's shell looks like a jigsaw puzzle.
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Moral of the story: Keep quiet even though you might be very happy or very mad.
Keep quiet. You can succeed by talking, but you can also die by talking.
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�Why the Rabbit Doesn't Drink from the Pond
A folktale from Cambodia
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(tU b SITTS t§f )
Once there was a snail who lived in a pond. He lived in the pond with many, many other snails.
The snail heard that there was a rabbit who lived close to the pond. He heard that the rabbit was very
fast. One day that rabbit stooped down to drink the water from the snails' pond. The snail yelled at
the rabbit, "You cannot come and drink the water from my pond! "
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�The rabbit replied, "Hey, I am not bothering you. I have drunk the water from this pond
since I was born. You are a slow, slow, slow crawling animal. You cannot even crawl as far
as I can hop."
35
�The snail got so mad at the rabbit. " You insulted me. How dare you say that I could not
crawl as far as you can hop . We will run a race. We will see who wins."
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The rabbit agreed to race the snail. "What are the rules?" the rabbit said.
The snail said, "I agree not to live in this pond any longer ifl lose this race."
The rabbit said, "I promise that I won't come and drink the water from this pond if I lose
thi s race."
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�The next morning, the snail and the rabbit started the race. The rabbit began to hop all
the way around the pond. The snail stayed in the water. After hopping for a while, the
rabbit didn ' t see any snail running behind him . He yelled, "Hey, Snail, you slow, slow,
slow crawling snail. Where are you?"
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38
�-The rabbit may have been fast, but the snail knew snails were very cunning. The snail knew
that he could never crawl as fast as the rabbit could hop . But he had an idea. He would trick the
rabbit. He got all the snails together and told them to spread out all around the pond. He told
all the snails, "When the rabbit yells at us and says where are you slow, slow, slow crawling
snail, whoever is ahead of the rabbit should say, 'Coo.' That means, 'I'm here. '"
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39
�All the snails lined up around the edge of the pond. The rabbit looked around. He
didn ' t see any snails. "Oh Snail, you slow, slow, slow crawling snail, where are you
now?"
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40
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�Right in front of the rabbit, a snail said, "Coo, I am here. " The rabbit got mad when he
heard this. He kept running very fast.
tsi 8'1tHf2 92j1 W 2JbtiWt~Wt9jbt'fl "~n gtsii:lHlJl: 1" ·HHU!J. Ntlib
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41
�He was almost to the finish line. The rabbit tried again, "Oh Snail, you slow, slow,
slow crawling snail, where are you now?"
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42
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-----
VI
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A little snail right in front of him said, "I am here, coo."
2Jbiju~Wtsi81b~29Sj1Wt~WH,jbm ~ "~n gtsii:ltM: 1"
1
43
�The rabbit knew he lost the race. He lay down right next to the finish line. He knew
that the snail was right there at the finish line before him. The snail won the race.
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nrilUl ilHNnWbtui wA~rutsi
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44
�I
And ever since they won the race, the snails stayed in the pond. But the rabbit no longer
visits the pond or drinks the water from it. The rabbit drinks dew instead.
mtHfl b~HHULUf!fi ny: g 2jH1.H:fn 8Jb ITT bH tut tutsi qbubtVJ fi i 4t~
g SJ1 UHUJUHntnJtub
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I
The End
OU
The moral of the story is, ''Don't judge other people the way the rabbit judged the snail. "
Another moral of the st01y is: "A bunch ofsticks cannot be broken. "
(Cambodian proverb from the internet.)
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45
�46
�ClfINA
Laos
Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It
is bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam
to the east, Cambodia to the southwest and Thailand to the
west and southwest. Rugged mountains, plains, and plateaus make up the 236,800 square kilometers. The Mekong
River flows along the western boundary with Thailand.
Laos, also known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is one of the poorest communist states in Asia with a
population of 6.5 million people. It is one of Southeast
Asia's most ethnically diverse countries. One United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report states that
there are 23 7 ethnic groups; however, only 49 ethnic groups
are officially recognized by the Laos government. The
major languages spoken are Lao and French and the major
religion is Theravada Buddhism. Eighty percent of the Lao
people are farmers.
47
�The Greedy Dog and the Meat
A Folktale from Laos
48
Once there was a dog who traveled from his home . He found a small
piece of meat in the road . The dog was excited, "I'm going to take this
meat! I am going to find a safe place to eat the meat." The dog walked on
with the meat in his mouth . He came upon a bridge. He came to the
middle of the bridge. The sun was shining brightly . He looked in the
water under the bridge.
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11B'.")20.
49
�50
He saw another dog reflected in the water, and the dog had a very big
piece of meat in his mouth. He thought to himself, "I am going to get that
big meat. I am going to take it from that other dog." It never occurred to
him that it was his reflection.
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ce~.
51
�He dropped his own little piece of meat
and jumped into the water to get the big
piece of meat.
52
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qu?uie)~?uu'>uu.
�Oh dear! The dog looked for the meat but there was no piece of meat in the
water. He did not think about the fact that he could not swim . Not only did
he lose his little piece of meat, he also could not swim . He did not know
what to do . His greed had pushed him to want more. He began to feel sorry
for himself He did not know how he was going to cross the river.
54
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~BE>U'l , GBUQUi>c:,J, ~BE>U'lr>UCLlU uo1}~::csoccuo?ocu'l::. CW'l l:E)O'lJ.Jbu
J.J'lnE.l'lnM°~ucieu?oimfu. cc:50.1.foi>J'>um~'le> 0~'iil::csoccuo?o~9'iil::~evtu
cJ9~0.
55
�All of a sudden, he saw an alligator swimming towards him! The dog
began to shake in fear. He was afraid the alligator would eat him for a
meal. He thought, I am going to die surely . As the alligator came closer, it
asked, "Hi dog. Do you need some help? Just tell me how I can help ." The
dog felt happy and said, "Yes, I would like for you to help me get to the
other side." The alligator replied "Hop on my back and I will help you
across the river." So the dog hopped on the alligator's back and rode across
the river to the other side. The alligator kept opening his mouth to talk to
the dog and the dog was afraid that the alligator was going to eat him up.
mu? mfu~um~Jocmucc2i ofo ~ c,139:n') :59~e,€.)JJ')tn') .iJu, .iJu:nJ')ucc21 c,Ju
m~')€.ltn9:5um9c~ucw')~J')ucc2,;y~JJ')nu.iJucuue,')m')u. JJu~ochee,€.l,;y~c,')€.l
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t.)')
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56
��58
As he approached the riverbank, the dog jumped off the alligator's back
quickly. He was so afraid that he pooped on the alligator's head as he was
getting off.
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ffi cw'>::.1JuJ'lucc2'.vd1u.1Jutn:}'>e>nc3e>2csJmomocc2.
59
�Moral of the Story: Those who want too
much will end up getting nothing. Don't
poop on those who help you . Show respect
and be thankful.
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~')LJU)')€) eJ'lr>~OlJJ~')€) c3€)(J~oimJe€)
bUJJ')j")
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60
�61
�CJI JNA
Vietnam
Vietnam is a country in Southeast Asia. Vietnam is well
known for its beaches, rivers, Buddhist pagodas and bustling cities. Vietnam has a long-lasting history documented
over four thousand years. With a total land area of 331,690
square kilometers, it is bordered by China to the north, the
South China Sea to the east and south, the Gulf of Thailand
to the southwest, and Cambodia and Laos to the west. The
population is estimated to be about 92 million, including 54
ethnic groups living in the country.
62
�The Golden Starfruit Tree
Cay Kh~ Vang
7
-
--
Once upon a time, there was a very rich man who lived in a village. When he died, he left
his two sons a huge fortune. The two brothers were entirely different from each other. The
older brother was greedy, while the younger one was very kind . The older brother claimed
the whole fortune and left his younger brother only a starfruit tree.
Thu& xua, c6 mot nguai rit giau s6ng trong Jang. Ong ta qua dai, d~ l~i gia san giau c6 l~i
cho hai nguai con. Hai anh em rit khac bi~t. Nguai anh thi s6ng rit tham lam nhung nguai
em thi l~i hiSn lanh chit phac. Nguai anh chi~m tron gia tai va chi chia cho nguai em mot
cay kh~.
63
�Both brothers got married .
The older brother with his
inheritance had nothing to
worry about. Meanwhile, the
younger brother who only had
the starfruit tree was very
worried . Thus, he took good
care of his tree, hoping that it
would give him a lot of fruit so
that he could make a living by
selling it. The tree grew bigger
and bigger. It had a lot of fruit.
Ca hai anh em dSu c6 v9.
Nguoi anh v6i gia san 16n kh6ng
dn phai lo l~ng gi, nhung nguoi
em thi rAt lo vi chi c6 mot cay
kh~. Vi vay, nguoi em cham s6c
cay kh~ h~t long d@ mong thu
ho:;ich du9c nhiSu khS, ban ki~m
tiSn sinh s6ng. Cay kh~ cang
ngay cang 16n va c6 rAt nhiSu
trai .
64
�When the starfruit was ripe, a raven flew by and stopped in the tree to eat a lot of fruit.
The younger brother was very sad to see this happen every day, but he did not know what
to do.
Khi nhfrng trai kh~ tren cay chin mong, mot con qu~ bay d~n d~u tren cay va an r§.t
nhiSu kh~. Nguoi em r§.t bu6n khi th§.y qu~ ankh~ cua minh m6i ngay, anh kh6ng bi~t
lam gi.
65
�One day, he decided to stand beneath the
tree and talk to the raven : "Raven, please don't
eat my fruit. This fruit tree is my only
fortune" . "Don ' t worry" the raven replied. "I'll
pay you back with gold. Make a 2-yard long
bag. Tomorrow morning, I'll come back and
take you to get the gold. "
Mot horn, nguoi em quySt djnh dung du6i
g6c cay va n6i v6i qul;l: "Qul;l ai , dung an khS
cua ta nfra. :06 la tit ca nhfrng gi ta c6" . Qul;l
tra Io·i: "Dung lo. Qul;l se tra ll;li bing vang.
Anh bl;).n hay may mot cai tui dai ba gang tay.
Cho sang ngay mai, qul;l se tr& ll;li va cha anh
bl;).n dSn ch6 1§.y vang."
�Next morning, the raven came back. He let the younger brother sit on his back and flew
over the sea to an island filled with gold. The younger brother gathered all the gold he could
fit into the bag that he had made. Then he flew back home on the raven ' s back with a lot of
gold. He was very happy . He had become very rich.
Sang horn sau, con qu~ quay tro l~i. Qu~ dS nguai em len lung r6i bay qua biSn d~n mot
hon dao c6 nit nhi~u vang. Nguai em IAy vang b6 d~y vao tui ma anh ta da lam r6i Jen lung
qu~ bay tr6 v~ nha. Anh ta rAt vui mung. Tu d6, nguai em tr6 nen giau c6.
67
�The younger brother invited the older one to come over. The older brother said,
''No, I don ' t want to go to your shabby house". The younger brother kept inviting
his older brother to visit him. "I have something for you, Brother."
Nguai em mai anh t&i nha. Nguai anh n6i , "Khong, tao khong d~n cai nha t6i
tan cua may dau" . Nguai em nai ni mai nguai anh, "Em c6 qua cho anh".
68
�Finally, the older brother gave in. He visited his brother and found to his surprise that
his brother had all sort of riches - a very big house, lots of beautiful furniture, lots of
money.
Cu6i cung ngu&i anh chiSu theo em . Ngu&i anh d~n va r~t ngl;).c nhien khi th~y SIJ giau
c6 cua ngum em - ng6i nha to n~mg, nhiSu d6 dl;).C dep de trong nha, c6 r~t nhiSu ti Sn.
69
�"How did you get all these riches, Brother?" the older one asked. The younger
brother told him about the starfruit tree, and the raven and the trip to the island
filled with gold. The older brother offered to trade all his fortune for the starfruit
tree. The kind brother gladly accepted the offer.
The raven came as usual and ate a lot of starfruit. The older brother spoke to the
raven the same words as his younger brother did. He received the same answer
from the raven . But he was so greedy that he made a much larger bag instead of a
2-yard long bag.
The next day, the raven came to take him to the island of gold. After he filled
the bag with gold, he put the gold into all of his pockets, too. Then, he climbed
onto the raven ' s back to go home.
But the load was so heavy that when they flew over the sea, the raven tilted his
tired wings. "Let go! Let go of the gold! " the raven screamed. But the older
brother didn ' t want to let go of the gold. Finally, the raven had to drop him into
the sea.
"Em lam each nao ma tr6 nen giau c6 th~ nay?", nguai anh h6i . Nguai em k~ l.;i,i
cau chuyen cay kh~ va con qu.;i, cung chuy~n di d~n dao c6 d~y vang. Nguai anh
tham lam d~ nghi d6i h~t tai san cua anh tad~ lfty cay kh~ cua nguai em. Nguai
em t6t b1,mg chftp nhan laid~ nghi .
Qu.;i, bay d~n nhu thuang le va an rftt nhi~u kh~. Nguai anh n6i voi qu.;i, nhung
lai nguai em da n6i va cling nhan duqc cung mot cau tra lai tu qu.;i,. Nhung nguai
anh rftt tham lam. Anh ta lam chi~c tui to gftp d6i chi~c tui dai ba gang d~ dµng
vang.
Ngay horn sau, qu.;i, d~n d6n nguai anh va ch6 anh ta bay d~n dao d~ lfty vang.
Nguai anh lfty vang d~y bao. Anh ta l.;i,i lfty vang v6 vao cac tui qu~n ao. Sau d6,
anh ta leo len lung qu.;i, d~ tr6 v~ nha.
Nhung khi bay qua bi~n, anh ta va tftt ca s6 vang tr6· thanh qua n~ng cho qu.;i,.
"Vut di! Vut vang di! ", qu.;i, la to. N hung nguai anh tham lam kh6ng chiu b6 vang
xu6ng bi ~n. Con qu.;i, danh phai b6 anh ta xu6ng bi~n .
70
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71
�Back at home, the younger brother waited for the older one for a very long time.
"Why is it taking so long for my brother to come back?"
The next day, the younger brother met the raven and asked where his brother was. The
raven told him that the older brother wouldn ' t let go of the gold and fell into the sea
because it was too heavy .
T~i nha, nguai em cha d .t lau, "T~i sao anh di !au r6i v~n chua v~?'' Ngay horn sau,
nguai em g~p con qu~ va h6i nguai anh dau . Con qu~ n6i ding nguai anh da khong chiu
vt'.rt b6 bot vang nen da rai xu6ng vi vang qua n~ng.
72
�- -~
Moral of the story: When you grab all things, you lose everything.
Bai hoc Juan ly : Khi b~n mu6n l~y t~t ca moi thu, b~n se m~t hSt.
73
�A Big Pot of Gold, a Vietnamese folktale
Cai Chum Vang, Chuy~n C6 Tich Vi~t Nam
Long ago, a man and his wife lived in the countryside.
They were very poor but they had good hearts.
Ngay xua, c6 hai vq ch6ng s6ng 6 mi~n que. Ho r~t
ngheo nhung c6 mot t~m long t6t.
74
��Everyday, the man went to the field , where they grew a
paddy of rice. One day, when he was plowing the soil, he
found a big pot of gold. He put it back in the soil.
M6i ngay, nguai ch6ng di ra d6ng, nai ho tr6ng lua.
Mot ngay no, khi anh ta dang di cay, anh ta tim duqc mot
chum vang 16n. Anh ta l~i ch6n cai chum vang xu6ng d§.t.
76
��When he came home, he told his wife that he found a big
pot of gold in the paddy.
"Where is it?" the wife asked. "If somebody finds it, they
wi II take it."
In a cairn voice, the man replied, " If it belongs to us, it will
be there. If somebody else finds it and takes it, it belongs to
them . If it is a gift from God, it will find its way to us."
Khi vS dSn nha, anh ta kS cho nguai vq nghe anh ta da tirn
duqc mot cai churn vang Ion 6 ngoai d6ng.
"N6 dau r6i ?" nguai V(J hoi . "NSu c6 ai tirn thfry, hose lfry
rnftt."
V 6i giong tr~rn tfoh, nguai chBng tra lai, "NSu n6 la cua ta,
n6 se con d6. NSu nguai khac tirn duqc va lfry di , thi n6 la cua
nguai fry . NSu n6 la cua Trai cho, n6 setµ tirn duang vs voi
rninh ."
78
��I
Hiding nearby, a thief overheard this conversation. The
thief went to the field , found the pot, and took it home.
But when the thief opened the Ii d, he found ... a big pot of
snakes I He put the lid back on it and took it away as fast as he
could.
Mot ke trom dang n§.p g~n d6 nghe duo-c cau chuy~n. Ke
trom di ra d6ng tim dUQ'C cai chum r6i dem v€ nha cua h~n .
Nhung khi ke trom m& n~p ra, h~n th§.y ... mot chum toan la
r~n! H~n day n~p l~i va mang chum di that nhanh .
80
��Next day, the man couldn ' t find the pot of gold in his paddy .
He told his wife, "Somebody must have taken it. I couldn ' t
find it. But if someone else has taken that gold, it is okay too,"
he said very calmly .
Ngay horn sau, nguai ch6ng khong th§.y chum vang ngoai
d6ng. Anh ta n6i voi V(J, " C6 nguai da 1§.y n6 r6i . Toi khong
th§.y nfra. Nhung nSu ai da 1§.y s6 vang d6, thi ci:ing duqc," anh
ta n6i voi mot giong rit binh tinh.
82
��The thief heard this conversation too. He thought, "That
man must be a blind person . Or a crazy man . That pot only
had snakes, no gold in it. I will bring this pot of snakes to his
home so the snakes will bite him ."
The thief put the pot in front of the yard that belonged to the
man and his wife.
Ke trom cling nghe dUQ'C. Hin nghi, " Th~ng nay phai la
th~ng mu . Ho~c la th~ng khung. Cai chum d6 toan la rin chu
kh6ng c6 vang. Tao se mang cai chum rin d~n nha cho n6 dn
may. "
Ke trom ben d~t cai chum truac san nha cua hai VO' ch6ng
kia.
84
��Next day, the man found the pot. He opened the lid
and ... he found gold inside! He was very happy .
The man told his wife what he found . "I told you . If it was
a gift from God, it would find its way home to us ."
ma
Ngay k~ d6, nguoi ch6ng thiy cai chum . Anh ta
nip ra
va thiy vang 6 ben trongl Anh ta rit vui mung.
Nguoi ch6ng kS cho V(J nghe. "Toi da bao. N~u n6 la cua
Troi cho, n6 tlJ bo v~ nha minh ma."
86
��The man and his wife became rich, and they helped other
poor people.
Moral of the story : If you are a good person ,
you will have good outcomes.
Hai V(! ch6ng trO' nen giau c6, va ho giup da nhfrng nguai
ngheo khac.
Luan ly cua cau truy~n: NSu b~n la nguai t6t,
nhfrng diSu t6t d~p se dSn v6i b~n.
88
��Biographies
Researchers
MinJeong Kim, Ph.D., is associate professor in the College of Education at the University
of Massachusetts Lowell (UML). Her research focuses on equity issues in literacy and language education of minority children. She recently conducted research on language and literacy socialization of Southeast Asian American children in classrooms as a research fellow
at the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston. She has published extensively
on language and literacy learning of children with diverse backgrounds including Asian
American children and children with disabilities.
Allyssa McCabe, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell. She got her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Virginia in 1980 and has
published over a hundred scholarly pieces. She has written scholarly books and articles on
children's narrative development and a trade book for parents called Language Games to
Play with your Child. Among other projects, she has conducted interventions with both parents and teachers to improve children's ability to narrate.
Phitsamay Sycbitkokhong Uy, Ed.D. is associate professor in the College of Education
and co-director of the Center for Asian American Studies at University of Massachusetts
Lowell. Dr. Uy has also worked as a diversity trainer for the Anti-Defamation League, professional development facilitator for school districts, and research and evaluation consultant
for colleges and universities. Her research focuses on Southeast Asian American educational
experiences and family and community engagement. Dr. Uy also serves a board member
of SEARAC, Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, and the Nisei Student
Relocation Commemorative Fund (NSRCF).
Illustrators
Alicia Eafrati ("The White Elephant") was born in Berlin, New Hampshire where she
attended high school and received her associates degree in fine arts from White Mountains
Community College. She is currently living in Portland Maine, studying illustration and creative writing at Maine College of Art. Her work has a focus in fantasy and wildlife, and she
plans to direct her studies towards children's book illustrations in the future.
Website: aliceissite.wordpress.com
Instagram: alice_is_always
90
�Chrisna Khuon ("Why the Rabbit Doesn't Drink from the Pond") is a recent graduate
from the University of Massachusetts Lowell with a BA in peace and conflict studies and
a minor in English. She is currently a project coordinator at the Center for Asian American
Studies at UMass Lowell. She was about 6 when she first realized her parents had survived
war and genocide. Her mother, Chanthy Khuon, is Cambodian and has spent the last 18 years
sharing her stories w ith Chrisna. These stories have had tremendous influence in how she
sees the world and what she looks for in this world as well.
Kyle McHugh ("A Big Pot of Gold") was born in Cambridge, MA and currently lives in
Billerica, MA. Kyle is currently a senior at University of Massachusetts Lowell majoring in
Fine Arts. His favorite medium is colored pencil because he believes that with colored pencils he can achieve colors that he wouldn't be able to attain through digital imagery. Kyle's
hobbies besides drawing include long walks and gaming.
C.S. Night ("The Golden Starfruit Tree") grew up in the small town of Derry, New Hampshire. Ever since she was young, she wanted to write and illustrate for herself, as well as for
other people. She always had a passion for drawing, enjoying the experimentation of traditional multi-media: ink, paint, pastels, as well as colored pencils. She went to the University
of Southern Maine to strengthen her skills as an artist and writer, utilizing those talents to
bring characters to life by the use of vivid colors.
Website: www.facebook.com/Nightillustrates
Instagram: nigh ti Ilustrates
nightillustrates@gmail.com
Janet Paik ("The Greedy Dog and the Meat") is a rising junior at the School of Visual Arts
as a illustration major. Her parents immigrated from South Korea and she was born in Massachusetts in a very small town. Her interests include dabbling in animation, sculpture, and
painting. She aspires to create her own animated short films. Writing poetry and taking direct
inspiration from the power of spoken word has helped her form the feeling and content of
her work. Since arriving in New York her desire has expanded to become more involved in
supporting feminism, and partaking in activism . She sees herself working in the animation
industry and as a freelance illustrator living in New York.
Instagram: art_ lumpling
Thomas Souphannarath ("Don't Open Your Mouth") graduated at UML Fall 2017 as
a Fine Art major. In his spare time, he enjoys playing computer games, watching animated
shows, and practicing digital art. Some artists he looks up to are Ross Tran and Anthony
Jones. It was a pleasure for him to work on the illustrations for the story, "Don' t Open Your
Mouth." The illustrations are all done digitally on Photoshop. As a man of few words him-
91
�self, he connected to the moral of the story on a personal level. These paintings are innocent
and light-hearted. He hopes to find a job in the video game industry as a concept artist, storyboard artist, or animator.
Ellen Wetmore is a 2017 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in FilmNideo and of the
2017 A.R.T. Artist Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Trust. "Art is the mitigation of an atrocious world." Born in Madison Wisconsin in 1972, and raised in Saginaw, Michigan, Wetmore lives in Groton, Massachusetts and is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of
Massachusetts Lowell.
Anne Sibley O'Brien ("Why the Rabbit Doesn't Drink from the Pond") is a writer and illustrator who has published 36 books for young readers featuring diverse children and cultures, including a picture book about a Cambodian American family, A Path of Stars, which
won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, Honor Book. She also illustrated
Jouanah: A Hmong Cinderella, by Jewell Reinhard Coburn and Tzexa Cherta Lee. Annie was
raised bilingual and bi cultural in South Korea as the daughter of medical missionaries, and
now lives on an island in Maine.
Website: AnneSibleyOBrien.com
92
��ISBN 978-0-36-843775-5
JIUIJ LJJ
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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A Long Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia book, 2018
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The "A Long Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia: Tales from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam" book is a collection of folktales from diverse communities including Burmese, Khmer, Laotian, and Vietnamese. Each folktale is written in English and the language of the originating community. Each folktale is also illustrated. Folktales include "The White Elephant," "Don't Open You Mouth," "Why the Rabbit Doesn't Drink from the Pond," "The Greedy Dog and the Meat," "The Golden Startfuit Tree," and "A Big Pot of Gold."
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Kim, MinJeong
McCabe, Allyssa
Uy, Phitsamay
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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96 p.; 10 x 8 in.; 25.4 x 20.32 cm.
Language
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English
Burmese
Khmer
Lao
Vietnamese
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml24_i001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Books
Burmese
Cambodians
Laotians
Vietnamese
-
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Text
1'alles from Jaurma9Ca:mbodia9
lLaoo9 ound Vietnam
Mullifa:ulliu1rall 1reacd[ftng i1n E1nglli§Jh 9 lEu1rme§e 9
Klhme1r9Viei1name§e a1ncd[ Lao
\
~A
Long Long
Time Ago
in Southeast . ,.~ ....c:,
Asia
~
TALES FROM BURMA ,
CAMBODIA, LAOS,
AND VIET AM
~~(i/M
000000000
00000000
000000000
~~~~
-
TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2019 • 6-7: 5PM
O'LEARY, MEZZANINE (61 WILDER ST., LOWELL)
REFRESHMENTS Will BE SERVED •FREE •OPEN TO All!
Free Parking at Wilder Street Lot (94 Wilder St.)• FMI: Minjeong_Kim@uml.edu
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Long Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia book launch and signing event poster, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
A poster for the book launch and signing event for the book A Long Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia: Tales from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The event took place on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. on the mezzanine at O'Leary Library.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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1 p.; 17 x 11 in.; 43.18 x 27.94 cm.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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uml24_i002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
O'Leary Library
Posters
-
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PDF Text
Text
STORY 1
A Little Girl
She’s four years old. She live with old lady when the parent out, go to work.
I’m going to work and she live with old people, and she go around the block, pick up all the . . .
make . . . short stick and the wood for . . . The fire, when they cook rice in a big, big frying pan
and give to them. And they give her that, you know, under the part, like . . . the crust, or the
bottom of the cooked rice.
And what she’d get, a piece like that and she bring to give the boy when they bring the rice on
their head. The whole by the boy, put away the part where they cut underneath. That gets put
away. And when they’re hungry and get a piece here, a piece here, all there, and have one little
piece left in hand. And the brother wanted no more because he . . . all away. Because the whole .
. . and he eat it, eat her finger and bites her finger and bleeding and she cry. And what they do?
The soldiers who see it cry. “Tell her to stop crying,” because it hurt so bad. She just . . . and
shaking. And they put her in the bag of rice and hang her in . . .
And . . . she pass out in their . . . When I come back from work, here my daughter hang up
there, and they tell me. And the people, the . . . , they whistle and the soldier, they ran past and
one of the soldier, they love her also when they live there. Take her out and give to me, he . . .
And I thought she was going to die. It was just so hard.
STORY 2
Hate Poop, Ride Elephant.
So he [hate] the poop and then he wants to ride on an elephant.
that says Hate Poop, Ride Elephant. Hate the lawsuits, climb the top of the palm tree.
In Khmer, it’s rhymes.
Because in Cambodia, you will see only palm trees. They cut out the trees and you see only palm
trees.
They hate the lawsuits and they . . . And instead, they go to hide themselves. He or she, I don’t
know what’s that, sorry. Hide himself or herself on top of the palm tree. So because he doesn’t
want to argue or get into quarrel or go get into lawsuit with anyone, I would like to go and live
myself on top of the tree, the palm tree. And there’s nothing for me to work, to do. And then I
have a small sickle. I cut a palm frond to make a basket. And then while I’m making that, I build
a basket, I’m thinking about stories. And when I make those beautiful, lovely basket of palm
frond I can sell those baskets and then buy some chickens. And when I raise these chickens with
some big chickens, I can earn some money, and then I will sell those chickens and I will buy a
small cow or an ox. And when I raise these ox or cows to be bigger, and then I can sell it, and
then I can hire a slave or a servant. And then if I order him or her to do the work and then he is
lazy and doesn’t listen to me, I will kick him or her. So that’s in his brain.
He’s thinking. And when he think the actions like out of his hand and then he fell out the top of
1
�the palm tree. And then he fell on the rice field.
Okay, so it’s like the palm frond is like this, like a coconut tree. And then while he fell down,
like his conscious coming to his mind. He just grabbed hold of some small frond and then he just
hang, dangle over there. When he fall, if he let go of this frond, he would die when he fall. So
he’s just hanging himself there. And now, we just postponed the story for a while, and then we
are talking about another guy who hate the poop and then he ride an elephant. Because in
Cambodia, they go out and about doing it in the open, like in India. They can open . . . And then
he hate walking and his feet on the poop. So he ride on the elephant so he stay away from those
poops or excrement.
And then while riding on the elephant and the elephant walk below, the guy hanging
himself with the palm frond up there, that guy up there say, “Help me! Help me!” And then that
guy on the elephant stands up and then he stand on the elephant’s head, and then grabbed the feet
of that guy or that girl, I’m not sure. And then the guy up there just shake himself because he fear
himself falling down but while this guy grabbed hold of his feet. And then this guy shakes the
elephant’s head and the elephant thought that, “Oh, this guy ordered me to walk.” And then the
elephant walks. And then now, you see these two guys hanging themselves for dear life with the
palm frond. And now the elephant is gone and two gentlemen or ladies up there. And now the
question is whether these two gentlemen or ladies can stay away from poop or not.
Well, they can escape poop and they can escape lawsuits. Do you think those two people are able
to escape the things that they’re afraid of?
So the top man or top woman is so afraid, so fearful, and then you know that the [sphincters] let
loose, like physically everything’s loose when you are afraid of something. And then the loose
stool come down . . .
And it drop down on the one that’s . . .
And then now the poop drop down on the head of the bottom one who hate the poop so much.
So during the cliffhanging, four men or women walk by. And these two gentlemen or ladies yell,
“Help me! Help us!” And then these four men or women, I’m not sure, ask how can we help?
Four, four. Now, these two men or women ask the four men and women to bring a scarf and then
grab hold of each corner.
A blanket. In Cambodia, we don’t have blanket. We have scarf. We have scarf like this one, but
not beautiful as this one. Cambodian, we have scarf.
Yeah, so they ordered these four people to grab hold of each corner and then stay below. So the
top guy or top person let go of the palm frond.
And then drop into . . . Onto the scarf.
And now you think these four hit each other’s heads and die. The four die.
They don’t care about these four person who die, but these two people sue each other. Because
the bottom one sue, “You poop on my head!” So now, in conclusion, the one who hates the poop
and riding the elephant got sued by the guy up there. And then the guy up there who hate lawsuit
got sued again by this guy.
MORAL: So he said that it’s you are thinking too much and you try to avoid. You are thinking
too much, try to avoid everything. But still, you cannot avoid everything. Yeah.
2
�Just a lawsuit, just a general lawsuit. So he goes up into the palm tree to get away from all the
lawsuits. And as he is thinking, he’s like, “You know, as I'm thinking here, I'm going to make the
basket to weave from the palms. And then I can sell that. And then I’ll get a chicken. And then
the chicken will let me afford to buy an ox. An ox will afford me to buy a servant, and if the
servant doesn’t work, I'm going to kick him,” and then ahh, he falls down. And as he falls down,
he grabs on to the tree, and he’s hanging by the palm leaves, and meanwhile—it’s just like dundun-dun. So meanwhile, this guy who hates to step on the poop everywhere, is riding the head of
the elephant to avoid the poop. Comes along this guy, dangling from the leaf, saying, “Help me.
Help me.” And so, he’s like, “Okay. I’ll stand on top of the elephant’s head and I’ll try to get you
down.” While he’s doing that, he stepped on the elephant, and the elephant thinks the movement
means to go, so the elephant goes. And now they have two men dangling by the thread, as the
other one, the Mr. “I'm afraid of lawsuit,” is afraid of what’s happening next. And then that’s
when he poops his pants, right? And poops on top of the guy who hates the poop. And then four
people come and they’re like, “Help us. Help us. We’re dangling here by the palm.”
This is where we can alter and so they can take their scarf and tie it together for them to
jump down. They can jump down safely, landed safely. The guys are okay, and then they go and
sue each other.
..
Oh, you want the four people to live? So the four people tie their scarves around to give a safe
place to jump down. So those two men come down. The man who hates the poop and the man . .
.
Sues the guy.
The guy who hates the lawsuit.
And that’s the end of the story.
And then moral, the line say, you cannot avoid anything.
[OMITTED SNAIL AND RABBIT STORY]
STORY 3
Allejo the trickster
Once upon a time, there was a couple. And these two, the mother and the father never get along
with each other very well. And they end up living separately. And then this couple, during the
time they live together, they have one young boy. So when the mother and father live separately
these Allejo . . . when you say Allejo in Cambodia everyone knows.
He’s an orphan.
The trickster. Allejo mean trickster, the name of the young boy. That is Allejo. And then this
young boy, Allejo, got sent to live in the pagoda or the temple. While living in the temple or
pagoda, that young boy think about the very favorite snack that he love to eat. And then he think,
he set up a plan to get his mother and father remarried in order to eat the cakes, whatever the
favorite snack. Because when you get married in Cambodia or Laos or Vietnam, they will
organize a big feast. And then he will and that his favorite snack like the Turkish delight. And
then the snack, I don’t know, I forgot the name of the snack.
Go to mother.
So first step, that young boy got out from the temple or pagoda to meet his mother living over
3
�here, and telling his mom, “Mommy, I think you live lonely for a long time. You’re supposed to
get married to a . . .
[TURTLE STORY OMITTED]
4
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A document with three Khmer stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
The document with three Khmer stories for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. The stories included were A Little Girl; Hate Poop, Ride Elephant; and Allejo the trickster.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 4 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ina K. Isolated Khmer Stories .pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
-
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PDF Text
Text
11-28-16 Vietnamese Focus Group
STORY 1
God of the Mountain and the God of the Sea
So the story I’m going to tell is about the God of the Mountain and the God of the Sea.
During the time of King [Honban], the 18th, he had one of the princesses is the most
beautiful lady. So when she came of age, the King wanted to marry her off, so he’s been
looking for a male with all kinds of . . . or like wealthy, handsome.
So they tried to get him the most suitable to marry her. So one day, there are two gentlemen
appear and they both fit perfectly for the princess. So once he introduce himself as the God
of the Mountain, which is something, it’s spelled S-O-N and then the . . .
SON, N as in Nancy. Son mean mountain. Tinh mean God. So he say, “I'm the God of the
Mountain.” I own all those on the land, trees, animals, all kind of good things there, and he
had a lot of powers too. So the king was like, “I really like you.” And then the other man
was like, “I’m the God of . . . I’m Thuy Tinh. I'm the God of the Sea, so I own all kind of
things that’s under the sea. I have power, he was handsome, and I own all the wealth down
under the sea. So the king was like, “I only have one daughter. I would love to have you
both as my son-in-law, but since I only have one, so who ever gather sort of like what you
call . . . When you asking someone to marry you have to bring all kind of gift.
The dowry is for the girl, the offering. All kind of gift offering. So whoever comes back
with the offering first, I will give my daughter to that person. So the next day, Son Tinh,
which is the God of the Mountain, came back first and so the king marry off his daughter.
The God of the Sea came an hour later and heard that the God of Mountain already married
the princess. He got very upset. He was so aggressive, so he use all his power. He raises the
sea level up and he make wind, he make the rain came, the sea rise.
Tsunami.
Yeah, it rise and what he wanted to start the war with the Mountain God, so he could take
back the princess. The God of Mountain doesn’t want to move the princess that easily. So
as the water raise, he also raised the mountain. So both had been fighting for days, lives
were lost. But after a while they both get tired, so the Sea God settled down, calm down,
everything came back to normal. So what they say is that once in a while when the God of
the Sea get upset, and he still want to take back the princess so he keep fighting, so that’s
why people say there’s tsunami, there’s some other . . . So that is my story. Every time
they fight, the Sea God lost.
In this one, I think just explain why we have the tsunami, the flooding.
The mountain was just raised up. Yeah, I mean like almost every year they have either
flooding or . . . A rematch. But every time they fight, the Sea God lost.
STORY 2
The Mercury Balance. Or scale.
�2
This story was my favorite story when I was a little kid. My parents told me about it, and I
also read it from books for moral teaching. I don’t remember all the details, but the main
idea is there was a couple who was in the business of selling and buying things to earn a
living. But they was not very honest, so when they make the balance, of mercury in the
middle, the bar for the balance. It’s empty in the middle.
In the middle, there’s an empty tube, and they put mercury in it. There’s a hollow tube. So
they put the . . . and mercury was the metal that has the highest density. So when they
buying something, they would try to make that it would weigh less so that they don’t have
to pay more. They use that . . .
And when they sell things they would try to tip the scale to the other side so that will weigh
more, so the mercury will . . . It can flow easily. Remember mercury . . . It’s a liquid
metal, right, so . . . It flows.
After a while, they got rich real quick, they bought houses and they had two sons. They
was good, but it got to the point that they got so rich and then they knew that they was not
being honest. And they tell each other that maybe because in ancient culture they believe in
whatever deed you do, if you do bad deed, bad thing will come to you. Therefore, they say
maybe now we are so rich, maybe we should stop doing that. So they decided to get rid of
that scale. They chop it in half and inside they found a drop of blood. Not a drop but it’s
like a clump of blood. They were so terrified. After a while, the two sons dies. One die first
and then the other one die too. One after the other. So they felt so bad for a few months.
You know fairy tale, so they cry for a long time. They mourn.
The good fairy appeared to them and say it seem like because they’d been crying for
months, after their two sons die. They’d been crying and they were very sad for two
months. So afterwards the good fairy appear to them and say, “Now I can see that you
really feel sorry for what you did. And don’t worry about it, the two sons that you lost,
actually they are the evil children that was sent to you. Now don’t worry, just continue
being good and then you will have other children.” And they did. So the moral story behind
it is that they teach people to be honest.
The fairy is a Buddha thing. It’s like the . . . In Vietnamese, they call it But. Good fairy.
Male.
STORY 3
A Big Pot of Gold.
In the old days, there was a husband and wife who lived in a countryside. They are very
poor but they have good heart. And then one day when the husband went to the field, and
he have a field of—they grow paddy, rice, and when they plough the soil . . . paddy rice.
Then when they plough soil in his land, he found a big pot of gold. Then he just put it back,
and that night when he went home he tell his wife that I found a big pot of gold. And the
wife said, “Where is it?” He said, “I put it back in our field.” And then the wife said, “Why
don’t you bring it home? If somebody take it then we lose it.” And he answer in a calm
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voice, “If that’s the gift from Gods, then it will be ours.” And if it not, and if it fall to other
people hand, then that’s okay too. And during that time there’s a thief who stand in the
corner of the house. They listen to the husband and wife conversation. After the husband
and wife went to sleep, they go straight to the field and looking for the pot of gold. He
found it and bring it to his home. And then the next day . . .
This person is a thief. They overheard the husband and wife story. Then the next day, the
husband went to the field, but he couldn’t find the . . . the thief took the pot home and then
when he open it he saw lot, lot of snakes, big snake crawling in the pot. So he just took the
lid and cover it up and put it away. Then the next day, the husband went to the field and he
could not find the pot of gold. That night he went home and talked to his wife and said,
“Somebody took it. I could not find it.” And the wife said, “I told you to bring it home and
you didn’t listen.” And the husband still answer in a calm voice, “It got took, the gold. It’s
okay too.”
Then at that time the thief is also listen to the couple. And he talk to himself, “This
man must be a blind person because there is only snake, not gold.” So he said that I will
bring the pot of snake back to this field. And then the next day the husband went to the
field and he found the pot again. He open it up, yes there’s a lot of gold inside. He left it
there and went back home, talked to his wife. “I found it again.” And the wife said, “but
why don’t you bring it home?” And the husband said, “If it is a gift from God, then it
should follow us home. Don’t be worried. It will find home.” At this time the thief also
stand in the corner of the house and he said, “Oh my God, this man is so crazy. He must be
very blind. Okay, I will bring the pot of snake to his home. So the snake will bite both of
them to death.”
So the thief go to the field and carry that pot, and put right in front of his house. The
next morning the husband wake up and when he went out of his . . . , he found the pot right
there. He’s very happy, and he open it, he saw there’s gold inside full to the top, and he
called his wife. “Honey, come here. Here I told you, can you see the gift from God. It find
its way home.” And then from that time they become rich and they help out other poor
people. That’s the end of the story.
The moral behind the story is if you’ve done good deeds, or if you are a good person, it’s
become like the . . . You have the rewards. You get the rewards, but the thief is not a good
person. He only want to steal from the couple, so he could not find anything good in that
pot.
STORY 4
The Golden Star Fruit Tree.
The star fruit tree.
The fruit tree. But also they put the golden in front, that’s why it has some gold in this story
too. This one very rich man, very rich, who live in the village, he die. He have two sons.
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The two sons inherit a lot of money, gold. But two sons are very different. One, the older,
the older one was greedy. The younger one was very kind.
Moderator: The elder one was what?
Greedy. So the older one sat down with the all of the fortune that is his, and left for the
younger only a tree, the star fruit tree. They all have wife. So the older one is all set up
about that, so he don’t worry anything, but the younger one very worry, so he have to base
on the tree for living. So he take care of the tree and make the tree and day after day it get
bigger and had a lot of fruit. And one day the raven come and eat a lot of fruit from his tree.
And he feel very sad. He say, “Why you eat?” The raven didn’t say anything, but the raven
keep coming every day and eat that. So finally, he had to say, “Raven, please don’t eat my
fruit because that the only thing I have.” So the raven said, “Don’t worry. I will pay you
back with gold.” And the raven also said, “Okay, prepare for bag about 60 cm long and
wide about three pounds. And wait for tomorrow morning, I will come back and bring you
to get the gold.”
So the next morning the raven come back and put him on his back and fly over the
sea to the island, to the cave, something like that, and get a lot of gold. And the younger
one fill with gold, come back, and he fly back to home. And when he get home, he now he .
. . So he very happy and now he remember his brother. So he contact his brother and invite
him to his house. And his brother say, “No. I don’t want to go.” Because his brother say,
“This guy poor. I don’t need to go there.” But he keep inviting him and say, “I have
something for you.” So finally, the elder come and then he surprised to see his brother now
very big house, have a lot of things in the house, and very healthy. So he asked him why he
got that. So the younger one tell him the truth, they have the tree and then the raven come
and like that. So the other elder one say, “Okay, now I want to do that.”
So he want to trade the tree with my property. So then he trade that and then he give
his . . . he waiting now, he have the tree. And then everyday he come and wait for the
raven coming. The raven will finally come and eat a lot of fruit. He say the same thing,
“Raven, don’t eat my fruit.” The raven say, “Okay, I will pay you back with gold. Prepare a
bag with three pounds and 60 cm something. I will pick it up and you will get the gold.”
But we know the elder one is very greedy, so he doesn’t make the bag pounds, he make it
six. So bigger, so he can get more gold. So next day the raven come, carry him, fly over the
sea, get to the island to get the gold. And he filled with gold.
He put the gold in the pocket and everywhere.
He just filled up and loaded with gold. He climbed up to the back of the raven and fly back
over to the land, to his house. But, when he fly to the sea and go for a couple minutes, it too
heavy, overweight for the raven. So the raven have to be gone down and leave him off the
back, and he dropped to the sea. And died there. He don’t get gold, because he say, “Let
go, let go.” He don’t want to let go of the gold. He keep going, get heavy, and then he fall
down.
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And then the younger one waiting for his brother, and saying, “Why is it so long he’s not
come back?” And day after he met the raven and asked the raven why he not come back,
and raven tell him the story. He keep the gold and then he fell down.
So the moral is the same, when you grab all things, then you lose everything. Don’t be
greedy.
STORY 6
King An Duong Vuong
It’s a legend, Vietnamese long time ago, back then there’s a king named An Duong Vuong.
I will show you all the names later. And actually, my husband will tell the story, not me.
We happy now. Okay, now you start, honey.
I think the story has been passed down for a long, long time, many generations. This is one
of them. I think has some meaning, after the story I will talk a little bit about that. King An
Duong Vuong, he had a dream to build a city in the shape of a . . . a seashell.
You only can go in by one way to get inside, like a spiral to come in. But during the time
he tried to build up the city, the wall keep coming down all the time. After he build it up,
the next day it collapse. He build it again, it keep collapse. So one day the God, the turtle,
we call Kim Qui, is the God of the Turtle, appear and give him one of his claw and tell the
king to use that to make the trigger for the crossbow. As soon as he make that he can find
one arrow, it kill a thousand of enemies. So that is the magic of the trigger using his claw.
So the neighbor, one of the country next to An Duong Vuong, which is called Au Lac at the
time. Trieu Da is the king of another country next to it, he want to take over Au Lac. His
strategy is have his son to marry the daughter of An Duong Vuong. The prince, his name is
Trong Thuy, married the princess, which is the daughter of An Duong Vuong. So they both
happy, however Trong Thuy want to know the secret of how he defend his city. And no one
can overcome it or defeat it. My Chau is his wife tell him the story.
She showed him the trigger and the crossbow. So Trong Thuy asked other people to make
an imitate one, and put that into the crossbow, and he took the real one.
And then he came back home.But before he came back home, he told his wife . . . is that
the one thing about the coat?
He came home. And his father’s armies started to surround the city of An Duong Vuong.
An Duong Vuong no worry, because he have crossbow, he can kill anybody. So he just
naive. No, no, but you forgot one thing. Before Trong Thuy, the husband, leaving his wife
and he said that, “If anything happen to you, then wear a coat with fur. It’s made by swan
feather.” Swan feather. Then just pull the feather and put along the way, so he can find
where she is. Marking the way wherever she goes, so he can trace her.
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That is one of the thing I forgot to mention. When the army of Trieu Da has surrounded the
city, so An Duong Vuong start to take the crossbow out and using it. It not effect anymore,
because no more magic trigger. So he gets surround and he had to find a way to escape.
And he take his horse with the daughter in the back. And the daughter do what her husband
tell her to do. She start to mark the way. Actually, he gave her the coat.
So because of that trail there, he’d be able to find An Duong Vuong. And at the time he had
caught the Kim Qui, the God of the Turtle coming up and say, “Your enemy riding on your
back.” Which is his daughter. So that is a sad story is he killed the daughter.
The king killed the daughter. And then they put her onto the well. And then when
her husband came to that well, she had already died. So he mourn her over there. I think
later people worship her on that well there.
Actually, now today, they found the city, the . . . Yeah. So it’s really true. They found the
foundation. They just found that a few years ago.
The wall must be about more than 2,000 years, because we have a history Trieu Da is one
of the king took over this An Duong Vuong. So in our history matching with the Chinese
history, matching back to the date around hundred years before Christ. Around then. And
then because of the history, I mean because of the excavation recently, they found the
foundation. So it does have something . . .
Moderator: It’s 3,000 times larger than what it is, because they were able to take a
computer projection of the layering of the city. So I wonder if they used the same computer
software to look at the foundation. That’s how they’re now doing archaeology is to look at
based on these computer projections.
STORY 7
Lac Long Quan Au Co story
The Lac Long Quan Au Co story is the main story about . . . Very important story in our
history.
It a part of our history, called . . . the word in Vietnam called Con Rong, Chau Tien. This
mean Children of the Dragon and Grandchildren of Fairy. So that the Vietnamese is proud
of that heritage which is son of the dragon and grandson of fairy. So the story go like this,
Lac Long Quan is one of the son of the dragon from East Sea coming to the north. And met
a lady which is the daughter of fairy of the mountain. So they got married. After that the
Au Co, which is the name of the daughter of the fairy, not give birth, she laid a hundred
eggs.
She laid eggs that hatch into a hundred sons. This is just a story, a hundred son. It’s like
the God of the Mountain and God of the Sea.
Then after they live with each other for a while, Lac Long Quan said to Au Co, “I am the
son of the dragon, we live in the sea. You are the daughter of the fairy, you are the
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mountain. We cannot live long together. So why don’t we divide it? I take 50 sons going
down to the sea. You take 50 sons, go to the mountain.” So they separated. And 50 children
. . . however when we separate, but we help each other. If there is any problem we will help
each other. So the 50 son go with Lac Long Quan, that make the Vietnamese today.
I think because Vietnam was surrounded by the sea, so that’s why they . . . I think the story
. . . I mean today, a lot of people explain the story the way how our ancestors tell the story.
The 50 sons follow the father, make the country, we call Van Lang. And there are a lot of
stories relating to those dynasty called Van Lang. Eighteen kings Van Lang. Many stories
like banh chung, which is we make the rice cake, and the story how we eat the petal . . . the
Asian, we eat the leaves and the... The beetle juice.. So many story relating to that 18 kings
we call Van Lang. That is the pre-date to An Duong Vuong which is the story my wife
said. So that is pre-date to that history.
This one is the 18 one also the princess . . .
Yeah, that is one of the story within the dynasty of 18 kings. However, the people today,
they can explain the story the way how people back then think, and create that story for us.
They think that there are many tribe back then. They live like a tribe, like here the Indians.
They live by tribe. So they stand for a hundred tribes, different tribes.
So that’s how they put the whole Vietnam.
In the northern part of Vietnam, so a hundred tribe just out of the wood, hundred, many.
Just mean many, that’s all. It doesn’t mean a hundred, but mean many. Many tribes come
together living in that area. Some from the sea coming up, some from the mountain coming
down. But interesting thing is they explain that because of the people from the sea follow
the father, which is the father is the head of the household. While the mother is a different
type of tribe, what do you call that?
The mountain . . . The mother is matriarch, and the father is the patriarch. Yeah. Like the
Hmong people. All of us know that story, maybe not new so much. But this one here,
everyone knows.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019
Description
An account of the resource
The Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection consists of materials from a collaboration between UMass Lowell faculty members and community-based organizations in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area to collect and publish folktales from four community groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese.
The complete collection is available on this site.
--------------------------
SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection, 2018-2019. UML 24. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, https://libguides.uml.edu/uml24.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A document with six Vietnamese stories, [2018]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Folk literature, Southeast Asian
Tales--Southeast Asia
Description
An account of the resource
A document of six Vietnamese stories for potential inclusion in the Southeast Asian Folktale book. Story 1 is titled, "God of the Mountain and God of the Sea." Story 2 is titled, "The Mercury Balance. Or Scale.," and is about a couple who are in the business of selling and buying. Story 3 is titled, "A Big Pot of Gold," and is about a farmer finding a big pot of gold in his rice patty field. Story 4 is titled, "The Golden Star Fruit Tree." Story 6 is titled, "King An Duong Vuong." Story 7 is about the son of the dragon and the grandson of the fairy. There is no story five listed in the document.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Folktales Book Project Collection
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[2018]
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 7 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vietnamese Focus Group isolated.pdf
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Documents
Vietnamese