Tales from the Homeland

Tales from the Homeland Stories Our Parents Told Us

Wide-eyed children around the world absorb their heritage through stories passed down from their parents. These tales are especially important for the children of immigrants, who may scarcely remember their homeland. Fables, legends and epics provide lessons crafted by ancestors that many Asian Americans still hold close to their hearts. At the University of Florida, students shared stories from their culture, continuing the age-old tradition of oral history.

JUAN TAMAD

IIn the Philippines, the story of “Juan Tamad” — or “Lazy John” as it translates in English — is well known among Filipino children. As his name suggests, Juan was an exceptionally lazy boy who always sought to find the quickest and easiest way to accomplish a task. In the original version of the tale, Juan Tamad comes across a guava tree and spots a shiny, ripe fruit hanging from a low branch, just barely out of reach.

Juan, believing he is incredibly clever, decides not to jump for the fruit, but to wait until it falls into his mouth. This way, he reasons, he doesn’t have to use his hands to eat the fruit. He makes himself comfortable by the base of the tree and waits day in and day out for the guava to fall.

After many days of waiting for his guava to fall, Juan Tamad felt something dripping on his face. He looked up to see a gleeful bat perched on the tree branch enjoying what was supposed to be Juan Tamad’s guava fruit. Defeated, Juan Tamad returns home with an empty stomach.

This cautionary tale warns listeners to act rather than wait. There are multiple versions of the folktale, but most maintain the same basic premise of a lazy boy who ultimately fails as a result of choosing the easy way out. In a more extreme version of the story, Juan Tamad actually starves to death as a result of his stubborn ways. Juan Tamad’s foolery continues in additional folklore such as “Juan Tamad and the Mud Crabs” and “Juan Tamad Takes A Bride.”

HUA MULAN I t’s probably no surprise that the story of Hua Mulan wasn’t originally a Disney movie featuring a plucky young woman, fire-breathing dragon and a catchy soundtrack. But the original story does have lyrical beginnings. “The story itself is a poem taught in school,” Alice Li, a third-year applied physiology and kinesiology (APK) major at UF, said. Li was born in the United States but raised in China until third grade. “When I was growing up, the older generation would tell that story.”

The “Ballad of Mulan” tells the story of a Chinese warrior woman during the Northern and Southern dynasties (approximately between 420-589 CE). In the poem, Hua Mulan has an elderly father too sick to enlist in the army and a brother too young to take their father’s place. As a swords(wo)man trained in martial arts, Mulan takes her father’s place in the army with her parents’ blessing. She fights for 12 years and is ultimately offered an official post which she declines. Mulan asks only for a camel so she can return to her family. As she leaves the camp to return home, she dons traditionally female clothing, and only then do her fellow soldiers realize she is a woman.

Li emphasized that the story’s themes of female empowerment and family values influenced her. “It meant self-sacrifice for the whole family and taking on burdens,” she said. “Women can do stuff just like men.”

The Taiwanese fable of the Grandaunt Tiger tells the story of a tiger who could change her appearance at will and enjoyed eating children. She would often disguise herself as different characters, go into town and kidnap children for her meals. One day, the tigress comes across two young girls who are home alone, Akim and Agiok. The tigress goes to the door several times in different disguises, but the children — heeding their mother's advice to not open the door for anyone — refuse to let the tiger in. The tiger bides her time and listens to the conversation of the children as they talk about their family. She goes to the door once more, disguised as the children’s grand-aunt. This time, the children gladly let her in because she knows the names of all their family members. At night, Agiok and the grand-aunt Tiger sleep in the same room. Akim wakes up when she hears a strange noise and realizes the tiger ate her sister. Then, the tiger ties Akim up so she can eat her later. The next morning, Akim devises a plan to escape. She tells the tiger she needs to use the bathroom and escapes through the window.

When the tiger realizes what has happened, she chases Akim through the forest. Akim agrees to let the tiger eat her if she can have one meal first. Akim has the Grand-aunt Tiger fry a bowl of peanut oil and pretends to eat her meal. Then she tells the Tiger to open wide so she can jump into her mouth. The tiger opens her jaws and Akim throws the bowl of boiling peanut oil into the Tiger’s mouth, killing her.

The fable teaches children the important lesson of not letting strangers into your home. The story has many iterations in several different cultures and is even considered to be a partial inspiration for the Brothers Grimm’s story “Little Red Riding Hood.”

In fact, each of these stories are inspired by or give inspiration to other folk narratives. They foster the exchange of ideas across regional or linguistic boundaries, driving home universal morals! Cultural nuances of folktales also reflect society, allowing audiences a glimpse into what societies value differently. In this way, when folktales are passed down from generation to generation, so too are their values and aspirations.