Reading Notes (A): The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung

Handsome King of the Apes

The King of the Apes was born on a mountain out of a special rock. This rock was filled hidden power from the heavens and earth and sun and moon since it originated from the beginning of time. One day, the rock bursts and out comes an egg. From this egg hatches a stone ape who eventually becomes the King. There was a waterfall that was basically the entrance to a cave. He told his ape friends what he found and then led them inside the cave. There they found  pots and pans and other utensils that were only made of stone. From then, the stone ape was named the Handsome King of Apes. I like the idea of there being a waterfall covering an entrance to something grand. I can potentially use this in my story for this week.

The stone ape and the waterfall; Wikimedia

The Great Sea

In this story, the King of the Apes breaks down at the thought of death. A wise, old ape speaks of three different kinds of living creatures who are exempt from Death's powers: the Buddhas, the blessed spirits, and the gods. Only these three categories can skip death and live as long as the heavens.

Sun Wu Kung Gets His Name

At the Mountain of Heart, the King of the Apes comes across a workman who tells him of a saint named "The Discerner". This saint gives the ape who came out of stone a name: Sun Wu Kung.

The Master

The master offers many different things that Sun Wu Kung can learn but he desired to only know how to attain eternal life. The master became irritated at his negligence and hit him across the head three times. However, the master was not irritated. Instead, the three blows to his face was an indication to meet him during the third watch of the night in his chambers. At the proper time, Sun Wu Kung excitedly made his way to the chambers and exclaims that he is ready to learn.

Bibliography

The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung taken from Wilhelm's Chinese Fairy Book.

Reading Notes (A): Tutinameh - Tales of a Parrot

Miemun and Khojisteh 

The parrot that Miemun buys for a large sum of money apparently has the ability to see the future. He is very pleased with his purchase. Miemun also purchases another bird as a companion for the parrot. This is a good idea that I could possibly build my story around this week.

Khojisteh and the Parrot

Miemun leaves for business, which leaves Khojisteh aching for his return. She neither slept of ate while he was away. In order to make her feel better, the parrot would tell pleasant stories throughout the day. While he is away, a prince comes by, and instantly, there are sparks between him and Khojisteh. He sends her a proposal in which if she gives his four hours of the night, he will give her a ring. Khojisteh is flattered by this prince, and in a daze, she sends back an answer to come at midnight. Wearing all her finest apparel that night, Khojisteh asks the sharuk (the other bird) for her advice. The sharuk replies that she should not commit such a lowly deed and stay faithful to her husband. Engulfed in love, Khojisteh begins to rage and kills the sharuk. Next, she asks the parrot for his advice and he basically says he has her back. He begins to tell a story to elaborate on his advice.

 The Parrot of Ferukh Beg 

This story is about another parrot who decided not to tell his master of his wife's cheating. However, his master finds out from another neighbor what his wife is doing and he kicks her out. Naturally, the wife blames the parrot and almost kills him while throwing him outside. The parrot nurses himself back to health and threatens to curse his master's wife unless she shaved her head and fasts for forty days. He tells the wife that he will make amends and proceeds to do so. In the end, all three characters end up together in the same house and live happily ever after. Khojisteh, happy at hearing this story, feels relieved. However, now she is too tired to meet the prince and decides to sleep.

Khojisteh and the parrot; Wikipedia

Bibliography

Tutinameh, or Tales of a Parrot by unknown.

Reading Notes (A) - Jataka Tales (Shedlock)

The Spirit that Lived in a Tree 

A king wanted to tear down a Sal tree to use it as the sole column for his palace. The tree spirit living in this tree was afraid that if he was cut down, the little children would also perish. He's not worried about himself, but his children. The king is awed by his sacrifice and decides not to cut down the tree.

The Hare that Was Not Afraid to Die

This time, Buddha is reborn as a hare, and again, he is willing to sacrifice himself to help others. The hare and his three friends, Otter, Jackal, and Monkey, believed that the moral law should be observed and that holy days should be kept. This moral law was to give alms to the poor.  In this story, all four friends offer their own food to a Brahmin that asks, who was actually Sakka, the King of the Gods. The hare has no food to offer other than himself, and proceeds to do so when asked. I like the idea of this story, and the fact that Sakka disguised himself to prove something. It's an idea I can use for my story.

The Parrot that Fed His Parents

Buddha is born a parrot and once again shows his willingness to help others. This time he is the leader of a flock of parrots. He takes them to get food, and after they have all eaten, he brings extra food back to his parents so they can eat. He says he is repaying a debt and doing only what is right.

The Man Who Worked to Give Alms

Buddha is reborn a merchant to works to give alms to the less fortunate. Sakka becomes jealous of him and suspects Buddha of plotting to take his spot. Sakka takes all his alms and fortunes so Buddha cannot give anymore. Buddha does not let this stop him, and mows grass in order to sell to get alms. Sakka is amazed by this and restores his fortunes and allows him to distribute alms.

The King Who Saw the Truth 

Buddha is born as a king who gives away his eyes to a blind man, which is actually Sakka.

Buddha; Pixabay

Bibliography

Jataka Tales by Marie L. Shedlock

Week 3 Storytelling: The Blizzard

Noah looked at the almost-finished cabin shelter that God had instructed him to create before the blizzard came. God gave Noah explicit instructions on the size and shape of the shelter, and how to build it in order to keep the cold snow out. Now that it was almost done, Noah couldn't help but admire how nicely it had turned out. Large clouds loomed overhead, threatening to shovel tons of snow until everything was buried underneath its cold weight. The wind had begun to pick up, showing signs of how frosty it was to become in the near future. In fact, the first flakes of snow calmly began to fall, warning Noah that time was sparse and immediacy was critical.

Noah rushed off to see how the finishing touches to the cabin were coming along. Along the way, he ran into his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who were ushering the last of the eligible animals inside. How did they know who to let inside? Well, God had given them explicit instructions for that as well. They were to round up two of each animal, male and female, in order to preserve the species. The animals who came up to the entrance and took a bow were allowed to enter, as they were deemed respectful, while the rest were denied entry for not living up to God's expectations. At this time, the wind picked up and became incredibly sharp. The snow began to sting as it pounded against Noah's face. Noah told his sons to speed this process up as they were beginning to run out of time. In a short amount of time, it would be impossible to see due to the wind and snow flying around. Anyone left outside would inevitably freeze to death, a miserable death if you ask me.

As Noah began to walk around to the back of the shelter, his wife ran up to him yelling that shelter was finally finished and everything was ready to go. Noah breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried this whole time that they would not finish in time. Could you blame him though? All their lives depended on him finishing the shelter on time, and God had trusted him with this monumental task. Just in time as well, because the snow was now falling in sheets and it was becoming hard to walk and see. The snow was piling up quickly and the temperatures dropping just as fast. It wouldn't be long till everything was a barren and desolate world of snow. Noah and his wife met up with their sons and the rest of the family and ushered the final stragglers inside. All the animals had made it safely. Noah took a deep breath and one last look at the world as he knew it. In seven days, God said the snow would stop. However, it would take 150 days for all the snow to melt and for the trees and plants to begin growing back. They had a long "winter" ahead of them. Noah closed his eyes and prayed that they had enough food and that all of them made it through this "cleaning" of the world. Even though he had followed God's instructions exactly, he couldn't help but worry. Noah opened his eyes and closed the large shelter doors as gusts of wind pelted them with snow. The snow raged on throughout the night as the Noah and his family and the animals could do nothing but wait.

Barren aftermath of the blizzard; Pixabay

Author's Note

I chose to write a different, more modern version of the story of Noah and the Ark. In the original story, God is fed up with man and his wicked ways so he decides to flood the world to flush out the bad. He instructs Noah, a good man, to build an ark that will fit his family and two of each of all the animals in the world. This ark must be strong enough to withstand violent waves and lots of water for over a hundred days. In my story, I changed the flooding to a blizzard that freezes everything and leaves a barren wasteland. I thought the idea of another ice age would be an extremely harsh way to punish man, which is what led to me write this story. Instead of an ark, Noah is instructed to build a cabin shelter that keeps out the cold snow. I didn't go into much detail on the blizzard, but mainly focused on Noah and his thoughts and actions immediately before it begins. All the characters were similar, as well as the rules that God had given Noah. The only difference was the method in which God decides to end all life. 

Bibliography

Noah and the Ark (Genesis) by Louis Ginzberg

Tech Tip: Twitter Follow

For this assignment, I decided to follow OU President, David Boren, Professor Gibbs, and OU Global Brigades. I chose to follow David Boren because I think he's a class act, and a good way to keep up with what he's doing is to stay up to date with his personal social media accounts! I know he tweets quite a bit, especially when it's regarding important matters that affects us students. I also chose to follow Professor Gibbs because I found a lot of interesting articles posted on her timeline and it would be a cool way to communicate ideas for this class. Finally, I chose to follow OU Global Brigades because it is an awesome organization! I was able to go on a couple of trips with them the past two summers and help out in developing countries and it was definitely a humbling experience. Although the account is a little outdated, there's lots of good information on it.

Tech Tip: First Tweet

Hey everyone, I've been using Twitter for quite a while now so I'm fairly familiar with how to use it. I mainly use it to keep up with current friends and family, but I've also found that it's a good source for trending news across the globe! Now it's one of my go to social media outlets when I want to know what's going on currently; everything is just a Twitter search away. It's also easy to share links and videos with people instantly, another nice feature that comes in handy A LOT. I used Twitter when I took Epics of India and it worked well for me, so using it again for this class should work just fine.

Reading Notes (B): Noah and the Ark

The Holy Book

Samael asks Eve to watch his son, which he happily agrees to do. However, Adam is fed up with the screaming and kicking kid and accidentally ends up killing him. The corpse still continues to kick and scream however, so Adam and Eve cut up the child, cook him, and eat him...pretty disturbing, but I think I could use this for my story this week! Samael returns, but Adam and Eve deny the whole incident. Adam fasts in order to speak to God and when he does so, God gives him the Torah. Jealous of all the knowledge he gains, the angels steal the book and throw it in the sea. Adam once again seeks God, who calmly tells him not to worry and recovers it from the sea. Noah was given the book in order to build the ark before the flood appeared and from then onwards, the book was passed down to many people so they could gain great wisdom.

The Inmates of the Ark

The ark was completed according to the instructions given in the Book of Raziel. God ordered the animals to repair the ark, while Noah was instructed to filter who was allowed into the ark and who wasn't. The animals which laid down at the entrance were granted entrance, while the others were not. The animals that were denied chaotically try to get in, but the rain begins to pour down, scalding hot. These animals throw their kids into the flood water in order to save themselves, a selfish move if you ask me. The rest of this story then goes on to describe some of the animals aboard the ark.

The animals working/waiting on the ark; Wikimedia

The Flood

Noah's biggest task was to provide food and shelter for the animals for however long the floods persisted. This story details the struggles Noah, his family, and the animals went through aboard the ark during the flood.

Bibliography 

Noah and the Ark from Legends of the Jews, by Louis Ginzberg.