THE REFLECTION OF ASIAN CULTURE ON LOCAL FOLKTALES

Tram Anh Nguyen

The Reflection of Asian Culture on Local Folktales

of peasant life during the Middle Ages. This was a time when supernatural beliefs and primitive

technology led farmers to ‘create’ explanations for the natural phenomena around them. Being as

widespread as they are, many of these folktales were also intertwined with local values and

beliefs of the country they were made in. For example, many folktales featured male main

characters because most Asian countries (e.g. China and Japan) were patriarchal. Another

example would be how the Mongolians gave hunting a major role in some of their folktales due

to the importance it had as an aspect of nomadic life.1 Though folktales often accurately

represented local values, they have also been used to inspire ways to rebel against societal

norms, such as the Nushu women’s retelling of these folktales with gender-empowering heroines

instead.2 But even so, folktales often strongly reflected various Asian communities’ cultural

beliefs, showing the value of intelligence and deception, emphasizing expectations of women,

and giving explanations for natural phenomena they did not have the technology to understand.

The Value of Deception and Intelligence

​ Through animal metaphors, folktales from Japan and more broadly Central Asia often

have stories highlighting humanity’s capacity to deceive others. “In popular Japanese stories the

fox and the badger have the ability to assume the shape of other animals, people, or even artifacts

such as statues, temples, bridges, or teakettles, and they often use their disguises to try to trick

people.”3 These foxes and badgers in folktales are popularly associated with deception and were

usually metaphors for people who deceive others, such as thieves and the like. By shapeshifting,

these animals easily deceived the humans around them, often leaving said humans bewildered or
1
Marianthi Kaplanoglou, "AT 545B 'Puss in Boots' and 'The Fox-Matchmaker': From the Central Asian to the European
Tradition," Folklore 110 (1999): 57, JSTOR.
2
Liu Shouhua and Hu Xiaoshen, "Folk Narrative Literature in Chinese Nüshu: An Amazing New Discovery," Asian Folklore
Studies 53, no. 2 (1994): 311, https://doi.org/10.2307/1178648.
3
Jeannette Faurot, "Animal Tales," in Asian-Pacific Folktales and Legends (Simon & Schuster, 1995), 48.
 2

angered by their tricks, just as they would be if they had been tricked by a fellow human. The

malice within the animal’s actions turned these stories into cautionary tales against being

deceived by someone like the way the animal deceives the human. Therefore, the folktale reflects

the Japanese belief that deception is something all humans are capable of, including animals, and

that one should always be cautious of others. However, this deception can have be beneficial,

shown in the Central Asian ‘fox matchmaker’ folktales that revolve around shapeshifting foxes

that steal from the rich, often to pay back a peasant that saved said fox from getting hunted:

“... He must also appear to be a rich owner of livestock: that is, a wealthy herder. His
deficiency in this respect is once again made good by the animal-helper, who cunningly
kills the owner of the animals and claims them for the hunter.”4

This deception of the humans around them does not necessarily mean it is a detriment to them–

sometimes, this trickery is done for the benefit of another person, so deception and trickery do

not need to have a negative connotation all the time. The way the fox in the tale presents the

riches to the hunter in an act of gratitude fulfills a certain fantasy that can be seen within

nomadic communities. One where a regular person turns rich almost overnight thanks to

supernatural forces and faces no repercussions for it. Since the desire to be rich is essentially

universal, this fantasy of becoming rich overnight could have applied to other Asian

communities too. Therefore, through the character archetypes and plots of these folktales, the

consensus most of these folktales had is that one must be wary of being deceived by others, but if

done for the right reasons, trickery can become a valuable skill to have, too.

​ Additionally, the value of human intelligence can also be seen through the way some

stories feature animals that emerge victorious through the use of their intellectual wit. The

Filipino story of The Turtle and the Monkey is an example of this portrayal, as the titular monkey

steals the turtle’s bananas because he was not smart enough to know that banana trees grew from

4
Kaplanoglou, "AT 545B," 58.
 3

their roots, which sets up his eventual death by said turtle. “The monkey did not relish that

expression. To prove that he was not lazy, he jumped into the river. Naturally, since he did not

know swimming as the turtle did, he drowned. The turtle had the last laugh, as he wended his

way home with his catch.”5 Although both characters had their moments of cleverness, by clearly

making the monkey less knowledgeable than the turtle, the folktale uses the turtle’s likable

personality to elevate the turtle’s value, contrasting the less smart, ill-tempered monkey. By

intentionally creating a bias towards the turtle, the folktale used these characters to enforce the

idea that people with intelligence are more desired and well-mannered compared to less

intelligent people. Therefore, the characterization of these characters presents the idea that the

Filipino communities valued intelligence. Additionally, the Japanese tale The Crackling

Mountain is another example of an intelligent hare as the hero with a cruel tanuki for a villain:

“While the old man was overcome with sorrow, and while he wept and bewailed his fate,
the hare returned, grasped the situation, and scampered off to the mountain fully resolved
to avenge the death of his poor old mistress [...] The hare laughed derisively, and killed
his enemy with his oar.”6

The intelligence the hare displays in killing the tanuki as revenge was an act of loyalty, justified

due to the death of the old man’s wife by the tanuki’s hand. These aspects of the hare’s

personality humanized it in a way, further proving how society valued those with intelligence

and painted them in a better light. The humanization of the hare also makes the reader more

empathetic to the hare’s revenge, therefore encouraging listeners in the past to look down on the

unintelligent antagonist with the unlikable personality. The value of intelligence was emphasized

through the folktales’ characters: how the smart yet sympathetic heroes were rewarded for their

actions, and how the antagonist was seen as arrogant and stupid for not being intelligent, but still

attempting to challenge the intellectually superior hero anyway.

5
Faurot, "Animal Tales," 66.
6
Faurot, "Animal Tales," 59.
 4

Expectations and Treatment of Asian Women

​ The concept of motherhood, the idealized mother, and her obligations have historically

been depicted in various folktales through the personality and actions of mothers in said tales. An

example of the obligations of motherhood in Japan is seen through the folktale of the

Ubume/Kosodate Yuurei and how it depicted the expectation that mothers had to protect their

children no matter the obstacles;

“The ubume (or kosodate) motif is composed of some very interesting contrasts. For one,
the mother has often died in childbirth, thus suggesting that the surviving child is to some
extent guilty of her demise. At the same time, a mother has a solid obligation to defend
and nurture her child even in death.”7

The folktale and the analysis of the ubume from the original folktale have created paradoxes in

the way that they portray mothers that died during childbirth. While they deemed it to be the

child’s fault for the mother’s death, they were not going to leave a child unprotected and

vulnerable. Therefore, Japanese women were still expected to fiercely love their children, even

with the threat of death by childbirth. The Ubume is a representation of that devotion because

even after death, the corpse of the mother cradled her child protectively, not letting go until

reassured that her child would be safe. That fierce protectiveness depicted in folkloric mothers

towards their children showed that devotion was expected of them and that Japanese women

were encouraged to strive for that version of an ideal mother. There are even more examples of

Asian folktales perpetuating the importance of the living mother’s obligation to protect the child

through the Japanese folktale Turtle Rock;

“The legend as narrated uses the rock and the striking events which are said to have
occurred there to bring together a cluster of meaningful cultural truths: a mother protects
her young with her life, the intensity of her dedication still affects the place and those

7
Michiko Iwasaka and Barre Toelken, "Japanese Death Legends and Vernacular Culture," in Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural
Experience in Japanese Death Legends (University Press of Colorado, 1994), 63-64, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46nrwv.7.
 5

who come near it, and the stone remains to remind us of the values which animate the
story.”8

Building off of the expectations held against Japanese mothers back in the Middle Ages from the

Kosodate Yuurei, mothers when they survived childbirth were often expected to meticulously

care for and protect their children from harm. Even if it cost them their life, they were expected

to prioritize their child, as seen through the metaphor of the turtle turning into stone while

protecting her eggs in the mentioned folktale. The folktale depicted the actions of the turtle

protecting her eggs at the cost of herself as a valiant one, which was a reflection of what

Japanese mothers were expected to do for their kids. Therefore, the folktale of the Ubume and

the tale Turtle Stone both use a character within their narratives to accurately represent what the

ideal mother was at the time. The duty of the mother to love and protect her child no matter the

circumstances was one of the key values often ingrained in Asian expectations of women, which

are often depicted in Asian folktales as morally correct.

​ Additionally, the representation of women who rebel against societal norms in Asian

folktales was an attestation to the misogyny that plagued the typically patriarchal Asian societies.

An example of this misogyny is the Japanese yamamba, specifically in the tale Blossom

Princess, and how she is alienated for being a woman with an unnatural lifespan;

“(The tale) describes a woman–– yamamba––who continues to live even after all of her
descendants have died. [...] Although she does not eat humans, she is seen as an oni
herself by the sheer dint of her longevity. Compared with the ambiguous gender of an
oni, a yamamba is and has always been female.”9

In Japanese culture, the oni (translated to ogre or demon) was often a creature that could freely

transform into any gender to trick humans into getting eaten by them. It is because of this

man-eating nature that they are assigned antagonistic roles in many folktales (e.g. Momotaro). In
8
Iwasaka and Toelken, "Japanese Death," 60-61.
9
Noriko T. Reider, "Noriko T. Reider," introduction to Yamamba : in Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch, by Rebecca
Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich (Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2021), 20-21, eBook Academic Collection
(EBSCOhost).
 6

contrast, the yamamba was a folkloric figure that depicts a female supernatural living in the

mountains, and is believed by folklorists to represent women who chose to live in the mountains,

and provide an explanation as to why they chose to do so.10 However, the supernatural nature of

the yamamba implied that the Japanese thought women would never have chosen to live like that

unless she was ‘abnormal,’ which spoke to the misogyny of the Japanese. Additionally, the fact

that the yamamba was equated to a man-eating oni, even though she did nothing deserving of

this treatment, indicated Japanese society’s alienation of ‘abnormal’ women. In this case, the

yamamba’s abnormal lifespan was enough to cause the Japanese to view her as equal to a hostile

oni. To support this point, modern interpretations of folkloric heroines usually made them oppose

traditional beliefs, for example, the adjusted versions of Nüshu folktales in China;

“Chinese men were nurtured on the Confucian concept that "the path of the official is the
natural career for a good scholar" [...] This view is not, however, shared by the heroines
of Niishu literature, who are very much against the idea of their husbands going off in
pursuit of fame and wealth.”11

This friction between the Chinese women and the Confucian ideals is proven through the quote

indicating that modern Chinese women wrote about Confucian officials in a bad light, likely

because of the patriarchal system they enforced at the time. The female heroes’ opposition

against Confucianist ideals is a reflection of how some modern day people recognize the

misogyny in Chinese society. This misogyny is not new, however, as many systems, like the

judicial one12, in Ancient China were known to be biased, but the way that old folktales blamed

women for being abnormal clashed with the modern folktales with female protagonists who are

critical of these beliefs enforced it’s presence. The clash between these stories reflects how

modern-day morals are known to actively clash against the misogynistic expectations of the past.

10
Reider, "Noriko T. Reider," introduction, 18-19.
11
Shouhua and Xiaoshen, "Folk Narrative," 312-313.
12
Paul R. Goldin, "Han Law and the Regulation of Interpersonal Relations: 'The Confucianization of the Law' Revisited," Asia
Major 25, no. 1 (2012): 11-12, JSTOR.
 7

Supernatural Beliefs About Natural Phenomena

​ Finally, folktales were often used to represent aspects of nature that Asian societies did

not understand in the past, and became fearful of. The following excerpt describes how animals

were usually depicted and characterized in Asian folktales:

“People tell stories in which animals behave almost like human beings, with qualities
such as cleverness, meanness, cruelty, vanity, and stupidity. Yet animals also belong to a
world apart, a world of unknown natural forces. Fear and wonder about this side of
animals emerge in stories about their supernatural powers.”13

The Japanese tanuki and the Philippines’ monkey and turtle are examples of the personification

within many folkloric animals. This personification likely happened because of humans’ inability

to communicate with other species, which created a desire to know more about the inner

workings of animals. By personifying them, humans could attempt to ‘relate’ them to

themselves, bridging the gap between the unknown. While they may have wanted to learn about

other animal species, these folktales differentiated them from humans by adding supernatural

elements to them. Another example of how Asian communities attempted to explain nature

around them is through the Japanese’s creation of the yamamba: “These four disparate vignettes

reveal the complicated and often contradictory attributes associated with the yamamba. She is

associated with nature, as signified by her mountain topos. Like nature she is erratic, changeable,

at times malevolent, at times benevolent.”14 As stated within the quote, the figure of the

yamamba was created by the Japanese to personify nature itself. Whether it be because of natural

disasters ruining their fields or miracle rain coming after a long drought, the ever-changing

depictions of the yamamba corresponded to the erratic behavior of nature. Through the

personification of nature through the yamamba, while still holding some supernatural elements,

humans could attempt to ‘understand’ why nature was being the way it was, and make it seem

13
Faurot, "Animal Tales," 47
14
Reider, "Noriko T. Reider," introduction, 15-16.
 8

less scary than it was. As this was a time without as much scientific development, this was the

best the Japanese could do to understand their environment. Through the personification of

things and organisms humans could not understand, a superficial sense of understanding helped

them rationalize why the things around them behaved the way they did.

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, there have been multiple examples of how Asian folktales were

proven to reflect the beliefs of older Asian societies. Humanity’s capacity to deceive is

represented in malicious villains in Japanese folktales but also in benevolent characters like the

fox matchmaker. The value of intelligence is also seen in how the Filipino and Japanese folktales

made likable and smart characters while villainizing the unintelligent ones. Expectations of

motherhood are also shown, as mothers were expected to protect and prioritize their child’s life

no matter what. Misogyny was also reflected in these tales– villainization of women who broke

social norms (e.g. the yamamba) and modern retellings of older tales show the disparity between

moral standards of the past and present. Finally, folktales showed how people tried to explain the

unknown through the personification of nature and animals. The representation in these stories

impacted Asian societies because they were widespread amongst the locals, which instilled said

beliefs and values into children and adults. As folktales were passed down, they preserved these

societal aspects, such as today’s standards of intelligence and motherhood, while others were

discarded once modern science and morality differences proved some beliefs illogical, like the

supernatural and the gradual dismantling of misogyny. By learning what people believed and

valued in the past, the people of the present can learn from their roots and become ethically

upright people.
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Bibliography

Faurot, Jeannette. "Animal Tales." In Asian-Pacific Folktales and Legends, 47-71. Simon &
Schuster, 1995.

Goldin, Paul R. "Han Law and the Regulation of Interpersonal Relations: 'The Confucianization
of the Law' Revisited." Asia Major 25, no. 1 (2012): 1-31. JSTOR.

Iwasaka, Michiko, and Barre Toelken. "Japanese Death Legends and Vernacular Culture." In
Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends, 43-124.
University Press of Colorado, 1994. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46nrwv.7.

Kaplanoglou, Marianthi. "AT 545B 'Puss in Boots' and 'The Fox-Matchmaker': From the Central
Asian to the European Tradition." Folklore 110 (1999): 57-62. JSTOR.

Reider, Noriko T. "Noriko T. Reider." Introduction to Yamamba : in Search of the Japanese

Shouhua, Liu, and Hu Xiaoshen. "Folk Narrative Literature in Chinese Nüshu: An Amazing New
Discovery." Asian Folklore Studies 53, no. 2 (1994): 307-18.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1178648.