Hello and welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
This is Beibei.
Guess what?
I made an interesting discovery today with the story that I'm about to share.
It turned out that there has always been a Chinese version of Cinderella, and it dates back to the Tang Dynasty about 1500 years ago.
The Chinese Cinderella lived in southern part of China before the unification of the country by the first emperor.
Her name was Ye Xian, and her father was the head of their village.
She was very well loved by her family.
Unfortunately, her mother died when she was little, and her father remarried and then died too, leaving her in the care of her stepmother.
The stepmother had a daughter too, but not nearly as pretty and as smart as Ye Xian.
The stepmother was very jealous, and she gave all the dirty and hard work to Ye Xian.
One day, the stepmother said to the poor girl, I want fish for dinner.
Go catch one in the river.
Now!
It was no safe matter at all for a thin, weak little girl to catch fish in a river with rushing waters.
But she couldn't say no.
The poor little girl tried again and again and finally got a pretty little red fish.
The fish had shiny red scales and golden eyes and seemed not to be afraid of her at all.
She couldn't let the fish be eaten, so she brought it home and kept it hidden in a basin of water.
She was of course punished for coming home empty-handed.
Ye Xian was not well fed at all, but she saved a little bit of her meals and fed it to the fish every day.
The fish grew and grew until it had to be moved into a pond in the backyard.
It was as if the fish could recognize the little girl.
It only came out when Ye Xin appeared.
Otherwise, it stayed at the bottom in the pond.
But as time went on, the stepmother found out about the fish and she tried a few times to call out to the fish, imitating Ye Xian's voice.
But the fish was too smart for that.
So one day the stepmother brought out a set of new dress and said to the little girl My dear daughter, you've been working so hard lately.
I've made you a new dress.
Why don't you try it on?
Now that's got to be an alarm.
After Ye Xian put on the new dress, her stepmother asked her to go fetch water from some faraway spring.
It could take half a day to get back.
Once Ye Xian left the house, the stepmother put on the little girl's old dress and went to the pond.
Again, she called out to the fish, imitating Ye Xian's voice.
And this time, the fish took the bait and swam to the edge of the pond.
Out came the dagger, and the fish was killed.
The stepmother cut all the meat from the fish and threw the bones in the garbage.
Ye Xian came back late at night, and the first thing she did was to go check out her fish.
No matter how she called, no fish appeared.
She knew then that her pet had been killed and she couldn't stop crying.
Then, out from nowhere, she heard a voice.
Don't be too sad, little girl.
Who was this?
Ye Xian lifted up her head and saw an old man with a long white beard descending from the sky in a patchy old gown.
The old man said, Your stepmother had killed your fish and had thrown the bones into the garbage.
Go find the bones and hide them well.
Pray to the bones and all your wishes will come true.
Ye Xian found the bones and cleaned them.
She found a safe spot to hide them and she treated the bones like her secret best friend.
On the days when her stepmother forbade her to eat dinner, she prayed to the fish and wished for a warm meal.
And it worked!
Fancy delicacies would appear, hot and rich.
Not too long after, it was time for a local festival called the Cave Festival.
Maybe because their ancestors lived in caves.
On this day, everyone in the village would dress in their best and come together to sing and dance.
It was a busy time for Ye Xian who, besides all the usual work, had to make new dresses for her stepmother and her sister.
When the festive day arrived, Ye Xian was ordered to stay home, while her stepmother and her daughter, in their fancy new attire, went to the festival.
Left all alone, Ye Xian talked to the fish bones, as if pouring out her thoughts to her best friend.
I so want to go too, but all I have is this dress with patches and holes.
How I wish!
Before she could finish, she was showered with strange colorful lights.
When the lights were gone, she had on a beautiful new dress made with colorful feathers, and on her feet was a pair of golden shoes which were so light that no sound came from walking in them.
Ye Xian was simply stunned.
She bowed again and again to thank the fish bones and then hurried out to join the festival.
A girl in a flowing feather dress with golden shoes.
She was the focus of everyone's attention the moment she appeared.
Everyone was whispering, Who is this beautiful young lady?
The daughter of the stepmother thought she looked familiar and asked her mother Doesn't she look a bit like Ye Xian?
The two squeezed through the crowd and came closer for a better look.
Seeing those two faces, Ye Xian fled in panic.
And yes, you are right.
She lost a shoe on the way.
A sparkly golden shoe.
When the stepmother got back late at night, Ye Xian was already asleep in her usual tattered dress.
So the stepmother didn't think about this much more.
The golden shoe however, was sold to a neighboring kingdom which ruled over dozens of small islands in the south and was very rich.
The king was very taken with this mysterious golden shoe and asked all the young ladies in the kingdom to try it on.
As we all know, the shoe wouldn't fit on anyone else's feet.
So the king sent out a search team to find the owner of the shoe.
And eventually they found Ye Xian, who not only could slip into the shoe easily, but also brought out the other golden shoe.
She then put on her feather dress and stunned everyone in sight with her beauty.
In this story, though, she didn't marry the prince.
She married the king instead, and she moved to the neighboring kingdom, carrying her fish bones with her.
As to the stepmother and her daughter, nothing good was allowed to come to them, of course.
They were left in the village and one day stones from nowhere fell on them, and that was the end of that.
This sounds very much like the Cinderella story, which can be traced back to Italy in 1634.
But the Chinese story of Ye Xian can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty about 1,000 years earlier.
It was possible that the story actually migrated to the west from China.
But no matter the origin, it's people's common wish that love and kindness could always defeat evil.
So with this lovely story, we've come to the end of our Chinese folktale series.
Thank you so much for keeping me company, and I wish you all the best.
Hope to see you again in our future shows.
Bye for now.
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If you've got any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us via email at podcast at cricomcn or find us on Twitter China Plus Pods.
