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Story Time!

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wishingstarx:
:keke: Ano, I'm mostly a fan of Japanese legends and folktales, which I learned a lot from my sensei in Okinawa...
One of the legends she taught me was the legend of "Tanabata"...  :sweatdrop: Though, it's kinda a sad story....

(Tanabata is a festival celebrated July 7, or August 7 in someplaces... It's when kids [umm..., adults, too] write down their wishes on coloured sheets of paper and hang them on bamboo trees [well, we didn't have any where we lived, so everyone tied them to the banyan tree] along with decorations.... Then, everyone would pray hard so their wishes would come true...)

 :sweatdrop: Um... since this is kinda a long story so I'll try to shorten it some, the best I can...

  There was a young man, who was on his way home from working in the fields, when he found a fine robe lying on the ground. It was a robe of feathers, that he wanted himself, but then he heard someone call out to him... It was a beautiful girl who said that that was her robe, and that she needed it back because she couldn't go back to heaven without it... The guy acted like he didn't know what robe  she was talking about, so since she couldn't go back to heaven, she had to stay on earth. So she went to live with the man...
  The girl's name was Tanabata. After a while, Tanabata and the man got married, and were living happily together...
Since the man loved his wife so much, he didn't want her to go back to heaven, so he hid her robe inbetween two beams in the ceiling...
One day, Tanabata found it, and she put it on....
  When the man came back, he was surprised to find out that Tanabata had found her robe and she was wearing it, standing in front of the house. But then Tanabata began to rise up back to heaven, and she called out to her husband, "If you love me, weave a thousand pairs of straw sandals and bury them around the bamboo tree. If you do that, we'll be sure to see each other again. Please do this. I'll be waiting for you." Then Tanabata rose back up to heaven...
The man was sad, but he tried to hurry and weave the straw sandals, just like his wife had requested. He weaved days and nights. Then he took the sandals that he had weaved and buried them around the bamboo tree... As soon as he did, the bamboo tree started to grow upward to the sky... It went higher and higher, and soon the man saw Tanabata... But in his hurry of trying to make the sandals so he could see his beautiful wife, he only made 999... So the tree fell short, and the man couldn't reach her...
So, Tanabata reached out to him and grabbed him, and pulled him over the clouds... She was happy to see that her husband tried so hard to get back to her, because she loved him very much. Though, the couple were very happy, Tanabata's father was not. He was very angry and upset that his daughter had married a man from the world below them, so... he gave the man hard work to do...
He told him to guard the melon field for 3 days and 3 nights, and he also said if he ate one of the melons, something terrible would happen... Tanabata told her husband that he absolutely couldn't eat any of the melons... but, as the 3 days went by, the man got hungry and thristy, and he couldn't take it anymore. So he reached for a melon...
When he touched it, a river of water bursted out of it. He called to his wife but, in an instant, the two were pulled far away from one another...
The two lovers looking across the river at each other became the stars Altair and Vega. Tanabata's father allows them to meet, but only once a year, on the night of July 7. To this day these two stars face each other across the Milky Way, shining brightly.

That's the story....  :sweatdrop: gomen nasai, I didn't shorten it much...

littlekitty:
Hm. Well, this is one of my favorite Japanese legends/myths. It's sometimes called Yuki-hime (or Snow Princess) but is also called Yuki-Onna (or Lady of the Snow). This was translated by D. L. Ashliman. Here goes:

Mosaku and his apprentice Minokichi journeyed to a forest, some little distance from their village. It was a bitterly cold night when they neared their destination, and saw in front of them a cold sweep of water. They desired to cross this river, but the ferryman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other side of the water, and as the weather was too inclement to admit of swimming across the river they were glad to take shelter in the ferryman's little hut.

Mosaku fell asleep almost immediately he entered this humble but welcome shelter. Minokichi, however, lay awake for a long time listening to the cry of the wind and the hiss of the snow as it was blown against the door.

Minokichi at last fell asleep, to be soon awakened by a shower of snow falling across his face. He found that the door had been blown open, and that standing in the room was a fair woman in dazzlingly white garments. For a moment she stood thus; then she bent over Mosaku, her breath coming forth like white smoke. After bending thus over the old man for a minute or two she turned to Minokichi and hovered over him. He tried to cry out, for the breath of this woman was like a freezing blast of wind. She told him that she had intended to treat him as she had done the old man at his side, but forbore on account of his youth and beauty. Threatening Minokichi with instant death if he dared to mention to anyone what he had seen, she suddenly vanished.

Then Minokichi called out to his beloved master, "Mosaku, Mosaku, wake! Something very terrible has happened!" But there was no reply. He touched the hand of his master in the dark, and found it was like a piece of ice. Mosaku was dead!

During the next winter, while Minokichi was returning home, he chanced to meet a pretty girl by the name of Yuki. She informed him that she was going to Yedo, where she desired to find a situation as a servant. Minokichi was charmed with this maiden, and he went so far as to ask if she were betrothed, and hearing that she was not, he took her to his own home, and in due time married her.

Yuki presented her husband with ten fine and handsome children, fairer of skin than average. When Minokichi's mother died, her last words were in praise of Yuki, and her eulogy was echoed by many of the country folk in the district.

One night, while Yuki was sewing, the light of a paper lamp shining upon her face, Minokichi recalled the extraordinary experience he had had in the ferryman's hut.

"Yuki," said he, "you remind me so much of a beautiful white woman I saw when I was eighteen years old. She killed my master with her ice-cold breath. I am sure she was some strange spirit, and yet tonight she seems to resemble you."

Yuki flung down her sewing. There was a horrible smile on her face as she bent close to her husband and shrieked, "It was I, Yuki-Onna, who came to you then, and silently killed your master! Oh, faithless wretch, you have broken your promise to keep the matter secret, and if it were not for our sleeping children I would kill you now! Remember, if they have aught to complain of at your hands I shall hear, I shall know, and on a night when the snow falls I will kill you!"

Then Yuki-Onna, the Lady of the Snow, changed into a white mist, and, shrieking and shuddering, passed through the smoke-hole, never to return again.

minty:
Thank you, wishingstarx and littlekitty, for telling us stories!! The Yuki-onna story has a moral and the Tanabata story is so sad but BEAUTIFUL!! I've seen many scenes in anime and manga that stages the festival. I wish I can somehow join the celebration!! The beginning of the Tanabata story, doesn't it sound similar to Ayashi no Ceres? It's about a man picking up a fairy's robe and she is forced to stay on earth. In fact, there's a Chinese festival whose origin is from a legend similar to the Tanabata story.

       this Chinese festival is called 七夕 (Seven Evenings) It's celebrated on the 7 July. The characters are 牛郎 (Cowherd) and 織女(Weaver Girl). Legend has it that Cowherd (Altair)  is a very hard working boy who looks after a herd of cows and 織女(Vega) is also very hard working and she sews beautifully. Her father, a god, decided to marry these two youngsters. But after they get married, they become lazy and spend all their time playing, not being industrious at all. The god was angry and in his rage, he separated the two so they are only allowed to meet each other once each year.

So once a year all the magpies in the world take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge ("the bridge of magpies", Que Qiao) over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, the seventh night of the seventh moon.

This is is much like the Valentine's Day in Western cultural.

It's a sad story but beautiful, isn't it?

wishingstarx:
Hai.   ano, here's another story...   
This counts as history...
It's a  sad, but inspiring story so I decided to post it here...

text from Church of the Larger Fellowship Connections, at http://www.uua.org/clf/connections/Summer/peace-day.htm

Peace Day: August 6

    August 6, 1945, was a day never to be forgotten in world history. It was the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in a desperate effort to end World War II. The city lay in ruins and the high death toll continued to rise for years to come. Every year after that, August 6 has been known as Peace Day. The story of Sadako, retold here, is a sad but inspiring story of one Japanese girl's fate and her classmates' response. In 1990, children of the Arroyo Del Oso Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico heard this story and decided to begin their own children's peace movement. They formed the Kids Committee for the Children's Peace Statue to raise a sister statue in Los Alamos, NM, where the U.S. built the atomic bomb. The movement begun by Sadako's classmates and renewed by American children will live on for a new generation of peacemakers.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Adapted from the story by Carol
Heller and Elsie Williams in
Teaching Tolerance, Spring
1993.

Sadako was two years old on August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on her native city. Almost everyone in the neighborhood where Sadako lived lost at least one member of their family. But for Sadako's family, life had to go on. Shigeo and Fujiko Sasaki rebuilt their home and family barber shop, both of which had been destroyed by the bombing, and their family grew.

By the time Sadako was in the sixth grade, she was the swiftest runner in her class, so nimble that her classmates called her "monkey" the perfect nickname for a girl who ran as if she were leaping through space. Sadako was the star of the Bamboos, the finest of all sixth-grade relay teams in the district. This was partly because of Sadako's prowess and partly because of the Bamboos' coach and teacher, Mr. Nomura. Mr. Nomura believed in the power of unity and he invited the team to his house where he trained them. In school and on the track they called themselves the "Unity Club."

One afternoon while training at Mr.Nomura's house, Sadako became dizzy and began to shake. That winter she developed a swelling on her neck. She began to lose weight and always felt tired. When the swelling became larger her parents took her to the hospital and she was diagnosed with leukemia, "the A-bomb disease." For over 10 years she had been carrying the disease inside her. She now had less than one year to live.

In the hospital where Sadako had to live, classmates came to visit often to keep her up-todate on their studies and on the relay team. Sadako hoped to re -turn to school and the team, but as the months wore on she got weaker and weaker.

One day Sadako's friend Chizuko came to visit with asmall square of gold paper. "I know how to make you well," Chizuko said, as she folded the paper into a beautiful gold crane. "Remember the story of the crane? It lives for a thousand years, and when a sick person folds a thousand paper cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her well." Chizuko handed Sadako the gold crane and a fresh piece of paper. With tears in her eyes, Sadako folded her first crane. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine more," she thought to herself and she'd be back in school and running for her team.

Sadako began to fold paper cranes with the same devotion she had given to running. When family and friends visited they too made cranes and hung them from the ceiling of her room. But there was no magic in the cranes and Sadaiko weakened until finally, in the late morning of October 25, 1955, 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki fell into a sleep from which she never awakened. In her hand she held her gold paper crane.

Her classmates could never forget their friend nor the injustice of her dying. They asked many questions of their teacher Mr. Nomura: "Why did Sadako have to die? What was her sin? Had she ever hurt anyone?" Through the death of their friend, war became very real and the innocent lives the bomb claimed seemed an intolerable wrong. Under Mr. Nomura's guidance, Sadako's classmates began a peace movement to honor her. They sent letters and petitions throughout the country telling Sadako's story and of their idea to build a statue to memorialize her and all the children who were victims of the A-bomb. To Sadako's classmates the statue would be both a memorial and a statement of commitment to work toward world peace. Their statement read: "We mourn for the souls of the children and students who were sacrificed to the war, and we wish to comfort our friends who suffered by erecting a 'Statue for the Children of the A-bomb. "We pledge to work toward a peaceful world that will never again wage war."

Thousands of children throughout the world responded with paper cranes and donations. On May 5, 1958, a children's peace statue was unveiled in Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. On its pedestal stands a life -size image of Sadako Sasaki, her hands raised to the sky. In them she holds a golden paper crane.

Every year, thousands of students from every corner of the globe send garlands of paper cranes to Hiroshima. The ones are collected by the mayor and on August 6, Peace Day, they are hung on the statue as a message of peace.

wishingstarx:
:sweatdrop: Gomen nasai for double-posting....
umm...here's another story:

KAGUYA HIME
story from http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/folk/kaguya/kaguya.html

 Long, long ago in Japan, there lived a poor woodsman. One day, he was cutting bamboo in a grove when he came upon one stalk of bamboo glowing a bright, golden color. Finding this mysterious, he approached it for a closer look.

  To his amazement, inside the bamboo was an adorable, tiny little girl. Since the old man and his wife had no children of their own, he decided to bring the child home with him, where he and his wife raised her with love and care. They decided to name her Kaguya Hime. From that time forward, whenever the woodsman went back to work in the grove, gold coins would come pouring out from the bamboo he cut. As a result, the old couple became wealthy.

 Amazingly, within just three months Kaguya Hime grew into a beautiful maiden. Her beauty soon became known throughout the country, and one young man after another came forth to ask her hand in marriage. Kaguya Hime refused all of her suitors, but there were five insistent young noblemen who refused to give up. In order to dissuade them, Kaguya Hime asked for a gift from each, and promised to marry the first one to bring her the gift she had requested. But these items were not things that could be found anywhere on this earth, and so the five young noblemen soon lost heart and gave up.

In the meantime the Emperor, who had heard of Kaguya Hime's beauty, also began courting the girl to become his wife and Empress. He too was refused. When the Emperor tried to force Kaguya Hime to come to the palace, she disappeared right before his eyes. The Emperor then realized that there was something unusual about Kaguya Hime, and so he too gave up.

 Three years passed and Kaguya Hime became even more beautiful. Then, one spring, Kaguya Hime began to grow melancholy on moonlit nights. She would stare at the moon with tears streaming down her face. The old woodsman, worried, asked what was wrong. Gazing up at the sky, Kaguya Hime replied, "Actually, I come from the moon. I was sent to live on the earth by my King, but now I have been told that I must go home. I will miss everyone here on earth, and that is why I am sad."
The old man was shocked, and not wanting to let his beloved daughter go, consulted with the Emperor to devise a plan. On the night of the full moon, the Emperor's guards hid Kaguya Hime deep inside the woodsman's house and surrounded it. Suddenly, the night sky became bright. Messengers from the moon dressed in brilliant clothes came down from the sky and descended to the earth on a cloud. At this sight, the guards become petrified and lost their courage. The messengers placed Kaguya Hime onto a palanquin and dressed her in a feathered robe. Leaving the heartbroken old couple behind, Kaguya Hime took off to the moon.

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