Nghịch Tử's Blog: An unexplored mine for fantasy writers: Vietnamese culture, page 3

Week 5: Ma cà rồng – Vietnamese “vampire” and the problem with Dunning Kruger Effect

Well, the last post in the #VNmyth series wasn’t really a myth, so I’ll do a quick post to make up for it.

The Ma Cà Rồng appeared officially for the first time in a book named “Kiến Văn Tiểu Lục” by a famous scholar – Lê Quý Đôn. Written in the 18th century, it described a newfound type of creatures in the province of Hưng Hóa, a part of the modern-day Vietnam Northern mountainous area.

They look just like humans and function normally as one of us during the day; while retain no memory whatsoever of their nightly activities. At night, though, the creature plugs both big toes into its nostrils; each of its hand holds onto the earlobe of the same side and it takes fly into the sky. They can shape-shift and are not limited to any specific animals, but they tend to choose the forms of house pets. After giving the pets a treatment of… “meeting your doppelganger,” the monster would snuggle with the owner to suck the blood it craves. While it won’t outright kill you, prolonged exposure will result in guaranteed deaths.

A Ma Cà Rồng taking fly during night time.

They feast on blood, ideally that of a pregnant lady, but also pus and sputum. They’re more like bodily fluid sucker than traditional blood feasting monster if you ask me.

Instead of being a corpse that comes back from the grave like many Western monsters, they are born that way and fully alive. They can’t make more of themselves through conventional means of turning their victims, but reproduce just like any normal human (hence a lot of them have human wives/husbands). Also, the ma cà rồng have reflection on silver base mirrors, and would eat you along with all your garlics if they feel like it. Their weakness is their skittish personality as they are easily startled by loud noises. Sources of light turn green when they’re presented so you can easily tell if one is hunting nearby.

Etymology, their name consist of two part. “Ma” is the Vietnamese word for ghost, but is used pretty loosely and can be regard to anything evil that come from the yin realm. Cà rồng is the Vietnamese pronunciation of ‘Krung’ in the Tal-Kadai language family. In Thai, it mean “city” (fyi: Bangkok native name – or at least the first part of it – is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon – city of angels. So yeah, missed opportunity for a book there Cassandra Clare ). So all in all, ma cà rồng is roughly translated into city ghost. But don’t quote me on this, since I can’t speak the Tal-Kadai of northern mountain people myself to fact check.

In conclusion, do they have anything in common with the western Vampires?? Absolutely fu**ing nothing!! Well, apart from a mistranslation. Pro-tip: I sometimes use this to test English authors (who use ma cà rồng in their book) to see if they actually did their research beyond that of forum articles. You can really tell whether the author do it with love, respect and curiosity or just to name drop a foreign beast to cross “diversity” off their to-do list based on what they do and their answers. Works like a charm :))

Also, I’ll admit, I do use this to click bait from time to time (just like I did here) but never without explaining the misinformation.

The problem is that in the early days of globalization, Vietnamese often used old words to describe new concepts (in this case ma cà rồng and vampire, respectively). It’s not the other way around and it’s a mistake that I’ll admit that have occurred on our end. However, this misinformation somehow find it way back to the English speaking world via forums like Reddit and Quora, thus making Western authors, with or without Vietnamese ancestry alike, to falsely group the ma cà rồng as a kind of *insert vampire equivalence name here*. You see why I brought up Dunning Kruger effect in my last post? This is what happens when authors merely skim through articles before writing about foreign concepts. They think they get it, but more often than not, their lack of knowledge create fundamental-level mistakes that are quite jarring, if not ridiculous, to read.

So, if you were to see an English author grouping Ma Cà Rồng as their vampire, know that it’s wrong.

Lastly, the Ma Cà Rồng will make an appearance in book 2 of the Half-Alive Series (which is already being written and translated), and has already been covered in a chapter of The Plane-Walkers Guidebook, which is a companion/free content of the series (if you compare the content of this post to that chapter, you can kind of see where I took creative liberty and added my own speculation to the old myths).

P.S.: to my ancestors, sometimes you folks make it seem like you are on drugs with your myths! It’s not helping!!

The post first appeared on Cổ Thuyết.

Week 4.5: Đối (對) – An essential art in Chinese and Vietnamese culture

This week on #VNmyth: Đối (對) (lit: parallel, verse or opposite), also known as Antithetical couplet, or simply, couplet – an essential aspect of East Asian (more specifically Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) culture that has rarely seen the light in English fiction.

Now, I know this is not a myth, but I’ll put it in the #VNmyth series anyway because in the future, there will be a lot of myths where this type of literature shows up, and it would be a pain to explain it again every time, so I’ll just make a super post explain the basic of things. This post is the hardest one to date to translate.

Pardon the half-rant, though.

Câu đối Tết

I. Usage:

Đối is a type of writing that was utilized in both poems and proses in the imperial days. Usually, it comes in pair, and for the sake of easy narrating, I’ll call them Upper and Lower.

You could literally see Đối everywhere, at the gate of pagodas or temples, on the family altar, on village gates, in a picture in a room, etc. For example, Chapter titles of Journey to the West was written as Đối. In the old day, people would even use them as a form of flyting (but they are more metaphoric on the insult) to challenge one another intellect and or the clashing of genius, spirit, beliefs. It plays a vital spot in every writing piece back in the imperial time, and would typically be the weapon of choice for folk geniuses to battle figures of power, outwitting those big bad while ensuring their own safety.

However, sadly, it was not utilized in English fiction inspired by Chinese or Vietnamese culture as far as I know of. And it is, in my opinion, such wasted potentials but an understandable phenomena. And I’ll explain why.

For instance, a book I recently read (which supposed to be heavily inspired by Chinese culture, btw), the lead girl made short and bratty, sometimes insolent even, retorts to people of higher authority instead of using Đối to outwit a figure of power. Now… I know readers from the west love this kind of character, but those “smart mouth” will get you killed 90% of the times in imperial Asia. You don’t outright insult someone on a higher social position in the east; thus, the Đối come in to help you subtly insult them while leaving them with little to no opening to outright harm you. In other words, it’s an essential art-form that all scholars in Imperial Asia that had dealings with Chinese needed to be well-versed in. It’s essentially a type of verbal battle, much like boasting or trash talk, that ancient Asians utilized in civilized situations. That lead girl is at her core straight up modern American, not an Asian inspired character.

Why did I bring it up? Well, honestly speaking, I did not hold my hope high on this matter. The author of said book is Chinese-born, didn’t leave the country until she was four, and has two masters in Chinese culture. Yet, I don’t think she knows about or knows how to use this type of art, let alone foreign writers. And here is the reason:

II. The rules:

The upper and the lower of a Đối are near perfect parallel.

1: They need to have the same number of words.

2: The words of the same positions have to be the same part of speech. For example: if the third word of Upper is a noun, so must the third word of the Lower. This goes with every type of word, including onomatopoeia and idioms. Also also, the idioms used have to be parallel as well.

3: If the tone of a word in Upper goes up, its counterpart’s tone must go down and vice versa. Please note that this can only be done in tonal languages, so it’s not something that can be replicate with English.

4: The meanings of both have to either be supportive or contrast. Now, this might sound easy, but if your Upper was formed with… let’s say, 4 smaller sentences, then all of them must be perfectly aligned in the Lower. And it should be constant, too. You can’t be both supportive and contrast to the Upper. Without heavily impairing your Lower.

5: There are pairs/groups of images that go better together, so using them instead of random imagery in a Đối is significantly more valuable.

6: The wordplay too has to be parallel. For example, if the Upper makes a comparison, so must the Lower, and they need to be in the same position.

And that’s just the basics of things. If I were to go deeper, I would need a freaking seminar just to cover some of the intermediate levels.

III. Conclusion:

To even know how to use this art require one to fluently use the native language, have extensively read our old literature, while at the same time learn all the rules of traditional poem making and rhyming. With all due respect and bloody honesty, do you seriously believe anyone would do all of that just to write a book? If I were to say I do, then I must be on drug myself. Isn’t worth it, especially when your targeted audiences aren’t the natives now, is it?

Before you were to say anything, researching for a degree and researching to write a novel are two entirely different things. Even then, reading a couple of articles before writing would most likely make one susceptible to Dunning Kruger effect rather than actually accomplish anything. With Đối, though, even the former situation isn’t enough in most cases. So no hard feelings whatsoever here folks. I just want to state a fact that “representing a culture the right way” is harder than you might think, at least it involves wayyyy more than reading a couple of articles.

IV. Some example (or the interesting part):

1:

Upper: Thổ triệt bán hoành, thuận giả thượng, nghịch giả hạ (土撤半横, 順者上, 逆者下)

Meaning: The word “thổ” 土 – earth – when removing half of a stroke, then it is “thượng” 上 – up, reverse it, and it is “hạ” 下 – down.

In this case, this is actually used by an imperial governor to convince/threaten a rebel leader to surrender. “thượng” 上 here can be understood as positive, being regarded highly, while “hạ” 下 – down is understood as unfavorable, being taken down.

(Note: here it use a pair of acronyms: thuận – nghịch. While nghịch is “reverse,” I don’t think its acronym has a direct translation in English, though a close approximation would be “to follow”)

So, in the language of uneducated person in the imperial time: if you surrender to us, you will be rewarded; if not, then you are dead.

Lower: Ngọc tàng nhất điểm, xuất vi chúa, nhập vi vương (玉藏一點, 出為主, 入為王)

Meaning: the word “ngọc” 玉 – gemstone – hide a point. If you take it out, it is “chúa” 主- lord (see the point inside now jump onto the top of the character?), if you take it in (in this case, omit), you will get “vương” 王 – king.

Normal people language: Nah, I want to be lord or king, so nuh-uh on the surrendering and f*** you!!!

Translating these is a major pain in the b*** btw!

Now, the art here is actually a type of wordplay that can only be done with Chinese or Sino-Vietnamese characters – the dissecting of words – chiết tự. And even then, you can see the contrast and parallel in the way they cut the words in Upper and Lower (reverse and its acronym vs. in and out).

This is a word battle between Phạm Đình Trọng and Nguyễn Hữu Cầu, two historical figures of the Vietnamese 18th century. There are rumors that they are destined enemies (they’re rivals from childhood, one was 3 years older than the other and died exactly 3 years before the other, sharing the same age at death). My other novel in Vietnamese had them as significant characters, but someone doesn’t want to translate it.

2:

Upper: Da trắng vỗ bì bạch.

Meaning: the white skin was slapped, making a popping sound

This doesn’t have a lower because no one has come up with a perfect match for it after hundreds of years. Why it’s so hard, you ask? It all comes down to the last two words.

“Bì bạch” is not only an onomatopoeia, but it is also an echo word (từ láy), a word that rhyme with itself in Vietnamese. And to make things even harder? “Bì bạch” is a word-by-word translation of “da trắng”, with “bì” meaning “da” and “bạch” meaning “trắng”. Need more challenge?? “Bì bạch” doesn’t make sense in Chinese or Sino-Vietnamese because you actually have to reverse it to make the word that means “white skin.”

The closest one came to a Lower for that was “Rừng sâu mưa lâm thâm,” which means, “in the deep forest, it rained heavily.” This one was deemed not good enough, though.

Well, I have tons more crazy examples, but I think today’s post is a bit of an information overload already, so I’ll stop now.

That’s it for this week.

Have fun and see you again, that is if you still want to hear more from me after this post.

P.S.: I used this image because making a custom pic for all the đối is too much work for right now

The post first appeared on Cổ Thuyết.

Week 5 Special: Đối (對) – An essential art in Chinese and Vietnamese culture

This week on #VNmyth: Đối (對) (lit: parallel, verse or opposite), also known as Antithetical couplet, or simply, couplet – an essential aspect of East Asian (more specifically Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) culture that has rarely seen the light in English fiction.

Now, I know this is not a myth, but I’ll put it in the #VNmyth series anyway because in the future, there will be a lot of myths where this type of literature shows up, and it would be a pain to explain it again every time, so I’ll just make a super post explain the basic of things. This post is the hardest one to date to translate.

Pardon the half-rant, though.

Câu đối Tết

I. Usage:

Đối is a type of writing that was utilized in both poems and proses in the imperial days. Usually, it comes in pair, and for the sake of easy narrating, I’ll call them Upper and Lower.

You could literally see Đối everywhere, at the gate of pagodas or temples, on the family altar, on village gates, in a picture in a room, etc. In the old day, people would even use them as a form of flyting (but they are more metaphoric on the insult) to challenge one another intellect and or the clashing of genius, spirit, beliefs. It plays a vital spot in every writing piece back in the imperial time, and would typically be the weapon of choice for folk geniuses to battle figures of power, outwitting those big bad while ensuring their own safety.

However, sadly, it was not utilized in English fiction inspired by Chinese or Vietnamese culture as far as I know of. And it is, in my opinion, such wasted potentials but an understandable phenomena. And I’ll explain why.

For instance, a book I recently read (which supposed to be heavily inspired by Chinese culture, btw), the lead girl made short and bratty, sometimes insolent even, retorts to people of higher authority instead of using Đối to outwit a figure of power. Now… I know readers from the west love this kind of character, but those “smart mouth” will get you killed 90% of the times in imperial Asia. You don’t outright insult someone on a higher social position in the east; thus, the Đối come in to help you subtly insult them while leaving them with little to no opening to outright harm you. In other words, it’s an essential art-form that all scholars in Imperial Asia that had dealings with Chinese needed to be well-versed in. It’s essentially a type of verbal battle, much like boasting or trash talk, that ancient Asians utilized in civilized situations. That lead girl is at her core straight up modern American, not an Asian inspired character.

Why did I bring it up? Well, honestly speaking, I did not hold my hope high on this matter. The author of said book is Chinese-born, didn’t leave the country until she was four, and has two masters in Chinese culture. Yet, I don’t think she knows about or knows how to use this type of art, let alone foreign writers. And here is the reason:

II. The rules:

The upper and the lower of a Đối are near perfect parallel.

1: They need to have the same number of words.

2: The words of the same positions have to be the same part of speech. For example: if the third word of Upper is a noun, so must the third word of the Lower. This goes with every type of word, including onomatopoeia and idioms. Also also, the idioms used have to be parallel as well.

3: If the tone of a word in Upper goes up, its counterpart’s tone must go down and vice versa. Please note that this can only be done in tonal languages, so it’s not something that can be replicate with English.

4: The meanings of both have to either be supportive or contrast. Now, this might sound easy, but if your Upper was formed with… let’s say, 4 smaller sentences, then all of them must be perfectly aligned in the Lower. And it should be constant, too. You can’t be both supportive and contrast to the Upper. Without heavily impairing your Lower.

5: There are pairs/groups of images that go better together, so using them instead of random imagery in a Đối is significantly more valuable.

6: The wordplay too has to be parallel. For example, if the Upper makes a comparison, so must the Lower, and they need to be in the same position.

And that’s just the basics of things. If I were to go deeper, I would need a freaking seminar just to cover some of the intermediate levels.

III. Conclusion:

To even know how to use this art require one to fluently use the native language, have extensively read our old literature, while at the same time learn all the rules of traditional poem making and rhyming. With all due respect and bloody honesty, do you seriously believe anyone would do all of that just to write a book? If I were to say I do, then I must be on drug myself. Isn’t worth it, especially when your targeted audiences aren’t the natives now, is it?

Before you were to say anything, researching for a degree and researching to write a novel are two entirely different things. Even then, reading a couple of articles before writing would most likely make one susceptible to Dunning Kruger effect rather than actually accomplish anything. With Đối, though, even the former situation isn’t enough in most cases. So no hard feelings whatsoever here folks. I just want to state a fact that “representing a culture the right way” is harder than you might think, at least it involves wayyyy more than reading a couple of articles.

IV. Some example (or the interesting part):

1:

Upper: Thổ triệt bán hoành, thuận giả thượng, nghịch giả hạ (土撤半横, 順者上, 逆者下)

Meaning: The word “thổ” 土 – earth – when removing half of a stroke, then it is “thượng” 上 – up, reverse it, and it is “hạ” 下 – down.

In this case, this is actually used by an imperial governor to convince/threaten a rebel leader to surrender. “thượng” 上 here can be understood as positive, being regarded highly, while “hạ” 下 – down is understood as unfavorable, being taken down.

(Note: here it use a pair of acronyms: thuận – nghịch. While nghịch is “reverse,” I don’t think its acronym has a direct translation in English, though a close approximation would be “to follow”)

So, in the language of uneducated person in the imperial time: if you surrender to us, you will be rewarded; if not, then you are dead.

Lower: Ngọc tàng nhất điểm, xuất vi chúa, nhập vi vương (玉藏一點, 出為主, 入為王)

Meaning: the word “ngọc” 玉 – gemstone – hide a point. If you take it out, it is “chúa” 主- lord (see the point inside now jump onto the top of the character?), if you take it in (in this case, omit), you will get “vương” 王 – king.

Normal people language: Nah, I want to be lord or king, so nuh-uh on the surrendering and f*** you!!!

Translating these is a major pain in the b*** btw!

Now, the art here is actually a type of wordplay that can only be done with Chinese or Sino-Vietnamese characters – the dissecting of words – chiết tự. And even then, you can see the contrast and parallel in the way they cut the words in Upper and Lower (reverse and its acronym vs. in and out).

This is a word battle between Phạm Đình Trọng and Nguyễn Hữu Cầu, two historical figures of the Vietnamese 18th century. There are rumors that they are destined enemies (they’re rivals from childhood, one was 3 years older than the other and died exactly 3 years before the other, sharing the same age at death). My other novel in Vietnamese had them as significant characters, but someone doesn’t want to translate it.

2:

Upper: Da trắng vỗ bì bạch.

Meaning: the white skin was slapped, making a popping sound

This doesn’t have a lower because no one has come up with a perfect match for it after hundreds of years. Why it’s so hard, you ask? It all comes down to the last two words.

“Bì bạch” is not only an onomatopoeia, but it is also an echo word (từ láy), a word that rhyme with itself in Vietnamese. And to make things even harder? “Bì bạch” is a word-by-word translation of “da trắng”, with “bì” meaning “da” and “bạch” meaning “trắng”. Need more challenge?? “Bì bạch” doesn’t make sense in Chinese or Sino-Vietnamese because you actually have to reverse it to make the word that means “white skin.”

The closest one came to a Lower for that was “Rừng sâu mưa lâm thâm,” which means, “in the deep forest, it rained heavily.” This one was deemed not good enough, though.

Well, I have tons more crazy examples, but I think today’s post is a bit of an information overload already, so I’ll stop now.

That’s it for this week.

Have fun and see you again, that is if you still want to hear more from me after this post.

P.S.: I used this image because making a custom pic for all the đối is too much work for right now

The post first appeared on Cổ Thuyết.

Week 4: Diêm Vương (Yan Wang, Yanluo, Yama King) – The King of Hell.

This week on #VNmyth, let’s talk about Diêm vương (Sino-Vietnamese for Yan Wang – “king of hell.” A.K.A. Yanluo).

So… Vietnamese King of Hell. Can you guess where he appears the most?

No. Not fairytales. Not scary stories. Not even folk poems and songs. Believe it or not, the supposedly Vietnamese King of the death most frequently takes part in comedies. And through these comedies, we can somewhat piece together roughly who he is as a person.

I. He who is afraid of his wife:

One day, the King of Hell gathered every male ghost in Hell and asked:

“Who here isn’t afraid of his wife? Stand to my left.”

All the ghosts moved to the right, except one who was late! Immediately, gazes filled with admiration were shot toward him. Diêm Vương, too, was surprised.

“You truly are a brave man. Tell me, how did you conquer the fear?”

The man finally spoke, timidly:

“O’ great King, I’m afraid too, but my wife wouldn’t let me go into crowds.”

The King smiled warmly as if he had seen a destined friend and said:

“Then you can come and stand by my side.”

II. The ‘wise’ judge:

A prostitute, a thief, and a doctor died and went to Hell. Diêm Vương asked the three souls what they had done in life. The thief said:

“I was a poor soul, wanting nothing more than to help people. So every night I would roam the streets, if I saw anyone forget something, I would hide it for them so thieves can’t get their hands on it.”

Then the prostitute said:

“I don’t have a husband and hyper-sympathetic, especially widowed men. Whoever comes to my place, I would treat them as if they were my own husband.”

The doctor was the last one to speak:

“I’m not as ‘good’ as the other two but have saved many lives when I was alive.”

The Hell King wanted to make the thief and the prostitute rich and powerful in their next life. The doctor, however, was sentenced to be boiled in an oil cauldron since he prevented the demon underlings from taking those dying souls.

The doctor then begged:

“Please give me one more night. I have to tell my son to become a thief, my daughter to be a prostitute. Whatever they do, don’t take up the family business if they don’t want to end up in the oil.”

III. Good doctor:

The King’s son was sick, so he ordered his underlings to go to the mortal realm to find doctors. When they asked how to decide who’s good enough for the prince, he said:

“Just look for the one with the least amount of ghosts following him, as those are the ones to die because of their incompetence.”

The underlings went up, searched around. But even the most famous doctors had a long line of ghosts following them. As they were about to give up, they finally found a doctor that had only one spirit tailing him. Immediately, they took the doctor to the underworld.

He did what was asked of him, yet the prince’s health only worsen. The King of Hell was enraged. Only then did he and his underlings learned that the doctor was a newbie and had only had one patient thus far.

IV. Pigs go to court:

Tired of being eaten, the pigs went to the King of Hell to sue the butcher. Diêm vương said:

“So… how do they kill you?”

One pig said:

“I was killed to be eaten.”

“Be more specific.”

And so, the pig went into detail about how it was prepared. (Nothing too graphic, more or less just like reading a recipe or food porn, but I’ll omit this just in case people find this disturbing)

It was stopped mid-way by the Hell King.

Still mouth-watering, he said:

“Stop! You’re making me too hungry now.”

V. Cultural contexts and my comments:

_ Yup, we poke fun at the King of Hell. While the death of people is still respected, the concept of death itself is viewed really lightly.

_ Asian Hell, much like Greek Underworld, is where all souls go after they die. After a person dies in Asian culture, or more specifically, Chinese and Vietnamese culture, they begin an afterlife in Hell, with the concept of Yin Longevity coming into play. It is said that only after a person has reached his Yin Longevity that s/he would reincarnate. Though, some stories say the spirit can opt for early reincarnation. Only the horrible people get punished, while only great men like national heroes who are worshipped by the people can attain Godhood/Sainthood and enter the Realm of Heaven.

In this line of thought, The King of Hell has always been a Deity on the side of good, not at all like the “Greater Demon Yanluo” in Cassandra Clare’s novels. While I still acknowledge most of the nods in her works to Asian culture as decent and respectful enough, this one particular detail had always bugged me.

_ The story of the thief, the prostitute, and the doctor is just how people make metaphors of how much damage a clueless leader can create by unknowingly putting the wrong people into positions of power. Also, it’s the power of narrative. It should be noted that there are also stories where Diêm Vương was praised for being a fair judge who punished the guilty and rewarded the innocent. However, the story is a lengthy and depressing one that I cannot manage to get into right now. So maybe another time.

Fun fact: The people who introduced me to this story were my grandparents, and they were among the last doctors to practice traditional medicine in Hanoi. And before you ask, yes, they are recognized by the authority and can work legally as doctors, so no superstition bs here :))

_ This is a theory I made to connect and systemize our folk tales with the legends of Đạo Mẫu (the religion of mothers) and is non-canon outside my own work, but I want to share it just to make this post a bit longer: the Hell King, being a clumsy, clueless guy that rarely does anything significant, doesn’t actually have any real power in Hell. The actual person in charge is his wife – the mother of Hell. Remember him being afraid of his wife in the first story?? And yes, I write my own books too, but this is not a series to self-promo.

Well, that’s it for this week. Sorry if it felt a bit rush as I have some IRL problems that need attention.

Week 3: Thuồng Luồng – a serpent/dragon-like mythical creature.

This week on #VNmyth: Thuồng luồng – Vietnamese dragon like serpent

I. Different description

Some say it’s a giant soft-shell turtle that use to live in the northern region.

Others argue that it’s actually crocodiles that migrate downstream from the Yangzi River.

Well, I’ll personally stick to the folktale’s description: a snake-like creature with scales as hard as rocks, a majestic crest on its head, may or may not have wings, and tend to grow legs when it gets older. All of its bodily fluids, including saliva, blood, and mucus, are highly poisonous.

II. Story where they are good:

The stories of the good Thuồng Luồng are pretty rare since they tend to be more on neutral/evil alignment in our stories, but I actually managed to find one. And it even tied to Chu Văn An – the scholar who is regarded as the best Confucianist in imperial Vietnam.

The story began with a strange young man that attended Chu Văn An’s classes. He came early every day, didn’t leave until the last pupil had left, and was very attentive and constructive during classes. Yet, whenever Chu Văn An asked him where he lived, he would just say it was the other side of the Red River. Suspicious, Mr. Chu asked his student to follow the strange man, and they saw him vanish at what’s now the lake of Linh Đàm – Hà Nội. Knowing he got a non-human in his class, Mr. Chu took extreme care in teaching the young man about right and wrong, as well as building his moral compass. He never questioned the young man’s origin since.

After some time, there was a massive drought, and the people struggled to make a living. Seeing people’s misery, Mr. Chu finally and asked his students what could be done to help. The strange student said: “If I were to listen to you, then it’d be against the Heaven’s will. But I’ll do it regardless because, as you have taught, the people’s needs come first. If something were to happen to me, please arrange my funeral.”

And so, he went out to the yard and perform a series of magic rituals that called forth a huge rain. Or, as the cool kids would phrase it, “Kingdra used Rain Dance. It started to rain.” Long story short, the downpour brought forth effectively ended the drought.

The following morning, people gossiped about the dead body of a thuồng luồng floating in the lake. Knowing that it was his student, Mr. Chu kept his promise with a heavy heart. A shrine was later built by the village folks in honor of the serpent.

III. Stories where they are evil:

There are plenty of this. They can either be the big boss as in “Đại Vương Hai (Great King Hai),” or “The magic goby fish.” I won’t be going into details about these stories since the serpent appears like your typical “goliath and the giant” monster, but bear this in mind: in all of them, the heroes died as well. The poisonous breath and mucus of the serpent got in through their nose, rotting away their brain and turn their skull into marshmallows. In some versions of the “goby fish,” the true form of the fish is a dragon. So yeah, you can imagine how ridiculously dangerous these serpents are.

IV. Stories where they are neutral:

There were at least three stories about them being neutral, with the tendency of being evil, so I’ll go over them quickly.

The first one is “Mr. Long and Mr. Short” (original title: Ông Dài Ông Cộc). The story started with a fisherman and his wife finding two strange eggs that hatched into snake-like creatures with crests on their heads. The couple decided to keep the animals and raised them as their children. After Mr. Short’s tail was chopped down by his foster father in an accident, the couple released the two back into the river, and the two became gods of that part of the river. While they both were generals under a Water God (not that one from the first story, we have a lot of them), they both sunk ships and caught cattle to eat from time to time. Mr. Short even kidnapped the wife of a mortal once, eventually resulting in his exile in the later part of the story.

In another one, there was once a thuồng luồng that hid under a betel garden (yeah, they can literally phase into the ground). When it was thirsty, it would raise its head up and lick the dew on the leaves, leaving its poisonous saliva on the tip. A man who ate that betel leaves prepared by his wife was immediately killed. In the end, a wise governor had found out the truth and slew the beast, but from that point onward, it was said that Vietnamese people retained the tradition of removing the pointy end of betel leaves to prevent this from happening again.

A third story told of a thuồng luồng once posed as a poor, stinky beggar lady. She went to a village, go to the pagodas and shrines to beg for food and shelter, but was ignored. She then went into the town for the same purpose. This time, she was chased away by people by their guard dogs. Only a widow and her child, who were the poorest around, took her in and took care of her. Even though the serpent returned to its true form in the middle of the night, the mother and child didn’t show disdain or disrespect. So when dawn break, the thuồng luồng gifted them with some magic rice hulls, telling the pair to scatter them around their house. Then it went and drown the whole village, only the isolated piece of land – where the widow’s house was – always stayed above the water. The rice hulls turned into boats when touched by the water. The widow and her child then used them to save as many people as they could.

V. Comments and cultural contexts explanation:

_ Vietnam is a country that thrives on rice farming and agriculture, so the fear of what lurks beneath the surface of water bodies is kind of a constant trope.

_ The idea of a thuồng luồng, or almost any other mythical creatures can be both good and bad, is actually one of my favorite things in Vietnamese culture. It showed that it’s your actions and thoughts that count, not your race or origin. Well, all but the exiled demons. Haven’t found a story where the demons are portrayed as the good guys; the closest I could find have them as chaotic neutral.

_ There is another story regarding a hero – Great King Linh Lang, who might be the reincarnation of one of the Four Immortals that use the serpent, but they are not the focus of the story, so I didn’t include it. Maybe for another time._ Thuồng luồng had another name: Lốt, and is actually a god in the đạo Mẫu (lit. the religion of… mothers, where the big trio (or quartet) deities in control are all goddesses), along with the five elemental tigers. Collectively, they’re called “Hàng Ngũ Hổ, Ông Lốt.”

_ Just add this in because people might find it interest: The Mother of Heaven – Mẫu Thượng Thiên Liễu Hạnh – is actually one of the Four Immortals I mentioned earlier. She is also rumored to be the mother to one of Vietnamese folk tricksters and legends – Trạng Quỳnh.

_ Speaking of which, though. While Heaven’s will most of the time are fair and just, cases where it is perceived as wrong, like in the first story, come up from time to time. And as you can see, both here and previously mentioned in the first post about the Duke and the Water God, Vietnamese really don’t give a rat*** about Gods or Heaven’s will if they don’t prioritize people’s wellbeing and happiness. So you can kinda see why it’s so hard to dominate/invade/rule over Vietnam. We’re basically a nation where the first thing children hear in their bedtime stories is that in the fight against injustice and unimaginable powers (whether it be gods, Heaven’s will, or enemies with bigger armies and more advanced technology), your own life is a small price to pay. The only way any Government could function in Vietnam, in our entire history, is if the (majority, if not all, of our) people support it.

Ps: next week supposed to be the dog but I’m having trouble with the sources (seem like what I read back in the days have been taken down), so I’ll post about someone else instead

Week 2.5: Differences in naming between Western and Asian Cultures.

Cultural context explain: naming

So… my book finally have paper back :)) Therefore, I want to celebrate this with a mini post in the #VNmyth series, but I’ll focus on explaining the cultural context this time. This week post about the dragon will not be affected and will be uploaded tomorrow.

Unlike the west, Chinese and Vietnamese tend to avoid using names of famous people, be that historical figure or mythological heroes. This has its root deep in the feudal time, with two of many examples below:

_ A famous sword call Xi Zhing Lung Yuan (Lil: Seven Star Dragon Creek / Dragon Den) had the second part of its name changed to Lung Xuan (Lil: Dragon Fountain) to avoid the name of the first emperor in the Tang Dynasty: Li Yuan. As for the name, legend said, looking at the sword felt like standing on a high mountain and look down on a deep stream. I struggle with this one because Yuan is a tart different in subtle meaning. The translation for abyss in Chinese is “Shen Yuan” (deep Yuan) if I remember correctly, so there’s that.

_ The second case is Cai Wenji, a famous woman in the era of the three kingdoms. Her original name was Cai Zhaoji but was changed to avoid Sima Zhao – son of Sima Yi and the father of the first king of the Xin dynasty.

Since modesty and respect are regarded very highly in our culture, the typical thought process of people isn’t: “I want my child to be as great as s/he is” but rather: “I should avoid that, in case my child can’t live up to the name and bring shame to the figure.”

And for the modern/feudal naming system of China, Korea, and Vietnam, they are different than that of the west. Usually, our names consist of three parts: the family name comes first + the middle name + the given name. It will take absolutely ages to explain it all, so I’ll keep it to the basic. Think of it as a lock combination with three slots, but instead of numbers, it’s Sino-words. And have you looked at the number of Chinese characters?? (Now, I’m not saying that every two random characters can be made into a name, but if you choose a word as your starting first name, it will probably have like 30-ish combinations to make a good name. And with 200-or-more-ish family names, it’s pretty easy to avoid repeating names of famous people since there’s only so many of them while we literally can have thousands of combinations for one first name.)

Also, while, in modern days, Vietnamese parents have started naming children after people they know and wanted their child to be like, the context is still usually that said person is not (too much) more famous/successful than the child’s own parents and/or aren’t national heroes. And while not every parent knows the meaning of their child’s name, our language is still straightforward enough that we can correctly guess the meanings around 90% of the time without having to look up the word root in a dictionary.

In fact, there is a tradition that lingered from the Vietnam War to this day. A lot of people – including my grandparents – would name their dogs John and Nix, after Johnson and Nixon. Now, calling someone a dog is considered an insult in our language since Vietnamese dogs used to eat excrement, so no respect whatsoever here.

All in all, to us, there is no respect whatsoever when an author just robs everything from a character, leaving nothing of their former self but the name yet calling it “inspired.” Ask yourself this, if it was only the name you’re keeping, why don’t you just make up another name in the first place? At best, the answer is lazy writing (as in: Because they don’t understand how the naming work over here, so they just use well-known names they can find online). At worst?? Then the authors are seen as treating our beloved culture as their profit cow to milk. And not just whites, Asian Americans made this mistake very often as well. The reason for the outrage of natives against these people is less often politic, or “you’re not Asian enough” or racism, but rather the misunderstanding/missing of cultural context.

Names aren’t just labels to us. Don’t slap it on just about anything irresponsibly; your “effort” won’t be appreciated.“

When in Rome, do what the Roman did.” You want to use our culture? Then please abide by our rules.

Note: Well, this just showcase we authors need more than just names and stories to get certain things about other culture right now, don’t we? Even our thought process have some differences that rooted deep in cultural contexts at a subconscious level.

And to me, at least, that is the beauty of cultural diversity. We are different, and that make room for tons of exciting things to learn. Things that a watered down, cosplayed version of any given cultures wouldn’t have.

Week 2: Linh Miêu – Necromancer Cat

This week on #VNmyth: Linh Miêu – A cat that can bring back the dead.

Note to self: cats always win, don’t put them in future polls, just write about them whenever you want.

Anyway, let’s begin with the cat that I promised to cover.

I. How they were born:

Surprised!! They are born out of Fengshui!! But, they are not some kind of “energy creature” you would typically see in that manhua Fengshui Monster.

Let me explain…It’s generally believed that any location, may that be a building, a room, or a village, city, even country, has its own “energy.” If it is positive, the place will prosper, and good omens will come. Yet, if the energy of the land is negative, strange phenomena will happen. Among which, there is one known as “Rắn phủ mèo,” or in English: “snake conducting sexual intercourse with a cat.”

Usually, the two main characters are a cobra (or any other poisonous snake) and a stray black cat. They would meet up deep in the wood, at a graveyard or an abandoned house, all those great places to haunt later, and bang.

The outcome of this strange event will be an egg, laid by the feline, left in an abandoned house or somewhere out of sight and sunlight. It will hatch into a kitten with black fur and a snakeskin pattern of any color running across its whole body.

II. Other things about them:

The kitty will mature at an accelerated rate, much faster than an average cat, and will develop a taste for hot chicken blood and egg yolk. Its deafeningly intense gaze can petrify any animals below or equal to its size for an easy kill. Besides that, they are actually no more harmful than your typical kitten, so some people would treat them as any stray cat, either chase them away or keep them as a pet to deal with mouses problem. And all is good and normal, at least until there is a funeral at your local.

Now to the fun and a bit of a clickbait part :)) there! I admit to having click baited a bit. Sue me.

Now, in Asian culture, especially Vietnamese, one’s soul doesn’t simply leave their body without intervention, nor can they just return as if nothing happens. You either have to learn a spell/magic to do so, or you will need external forces (a calling of a spirit, dark magic, tragic incident, etc.).I think by now you can guess it already, that cat, whose father was a snake, is one of those external forces. It can’t suck the soul out of you, but it can let things in by simply jumping over the corpse, creating a phenomenon we call “quỷ nhập tràng.”

But here’s the thing. What it brings back is entirely random since, in our culture, hungry ghosts, all kinds of wild demons roam the earth on a daily basis. So, any spiritual being can get brought into the newly dead corpse via the Linh Miêu.

This is exponentially more dangerous at the hour of the Buffalo, namely from 1-3 am. That’s the time when the gateway of hell opened, and the spirits have two hours to go around. It’s not that the cat will get stronger; it’s that more dangerous stuff will roam freely at that hour. There was once an urban legend that a demonic spirit got brought back via a Linh Miêu’s jump. The corpse started to lunge itself onto people, and once it did so, the demon transferred itself onto a new victim as if it was an infectious disease. Before long, all the guests at that funeral were but lifeless corpses.

This is why if you come to the rural part of Vietnam and stumble upon a funeral, you will see cats and dogs being bound and keep in their place to prevent this from happening.

In a nutshell, these Linh Miêu are like necromancy slot machines. While their intention is trivial in this process, most rural and urban legends told that the cats were evil and they did the jump on purpose.

III. Their origin:

Now, there is a loosely tied-in folktale regarding these cats.

Once, in imperial Vietnam, a girl was known for her beauty, both in appearance and personality. She came from a poor family and had to work a lot to sustain her family. One day, a servant of a rich man came to their house with many expensive presents and asked if the young girl would be the second wife of his master. The parents agreed, thinking she would be better off married to a rich man and lived a happy life rather than be with them. But only when she arrived at her new home did the young girl realize what kind of s*** hole she had just gotten herself into.

The rich man’s first wife can’t bear a child, so he married her to continue the family life. Moreover, the big wife is a cold-blooded and cruel woman. She worried that her position in the house will be threatened if the young girl can bear a son for the husband, so she came up with a plan.

On the outside, she pretended to be gentle and caring, but every time the young woman got pregnant, she would poison the fetus in its mother’s womb, killing it before it could be born. The young girl knew this, and on the third time when it happened, she desperately tried to protect her child. But the first wife had already anticipated this and bribe the doctor to put the child down once more. This was the last straw for the young woman. On her dying bed, having lost her children three times, she swore that if they were all reincarnated, she would exact her revenge on the cruel woman in the next life. It was noted that on the day she drew her last breath, fur could be seen on her chin, and her eyes glowed green, brightly like cat eyes.

And they were both reincarnated. The young woman was a cat, and the big wife was a hen, living in the same household. Due to the antagonist of their previous life, the cat would eat every egg that the hen laid. On the third time, she ate the hen as well.

The grudge of the hen turned it into a jaguar in the next life, and the cat into a deer. Just as before, the jaguar hunted the deer’s offsprings three times before finishing it as well.

The deer grudge grew exponentially, and in turn, turned into a demon cat called black yaksha, while the jaguar was reincarnated into a beautiful woman. Every time her kid was born, the yaksha would disguise itself as a young woman to lure the child away and eat it. On her third child, the woman was terrified, so she ran away with her husband. On their way, she saw a young girl approaching them. Her mother sense was tingling Peter Parker’s style, so she ran, somehow knowing that the girl before her was the demon who came for her last child. The yaksha turned back into its true form of a hideous monster cat and chased them all the way into a pagoda. There, Buddha showed up and restored their memory of those past lives.

There, finally grew tired of the vicious cycle of getting revenge and getting murdered in retaliation, also realized what the quest for vengeance had made her become, the yaksha spare the mother and her child, knowing that in this life, they’re innocent. She became a saint later on for doing something most of us simply can’t.

It’s said that the Linh Miêu retained some power of the black yaksha; therefore, it had demonic property as well as having a taste for chicken blood and yolk.

IV. Cultural context explanation and my comments:

_ The marriage part is well, in the day when starvation is typical, I think the parent had their reason. The story didn’t say anything about them wanting the richness of those gifts, so I wouldn’t make any assumptions on that front.

_ Those were the days when polygamy is a thing, and the wife’s position is determined by her child. So yeah, that explained the big wife acted like that. I’m not saying she’s right and not a horrible person, but to show that her motivation is understandable during that period of time.

_ In the feudal time, Vietnam too was influenced by Confucius’s thinking. Among which, there is a saying, “the worst thing a child/person can do to a family line is discontinuing it.” So that’s the reason why the rich man needed a new wife.

But funnily enough, polygamy isn’t that common like you might think or hear of in fiction and novels. There were strict rules about who can have more wives and economic requirements for doing so. In fact, in Vietnamese, the three most challenging things in the life of a farmer are buying his own buffalo, building his own house, and marrying a woman. All in all, ordinary folks like us would most likely have a monogamous life even several hundred years ago.

_ While some Vietnamese do believe in reincarnation, they only loosely believe in punishments/rewards of the previous life carry on into the next life. This is showcased in this story above, as it’s not some divine punishment that comes for the two women involved, but the grudge among themselves that kept them in a dead loop. Also, I kind of like the metaphor of “people can lose themselves in vengeance and turn into the very monster they hate” of this story.

_ Side note: Buddha in Vietnamese Folklore had been, what to say, changed a bit. Sometimes he played the role of Bodhisatva or fairy godmother; in other cases, he was the mentor/supporter. In rare cases, Buddha even appeared to use a staff and single-handedly stale-mated a whole army of demons, but that is another story for another time.

_ If you were to google “Linh Miêu,” you will probably come up with the images of “Lynx.” This is actually something that got lost in translation as Vietnamese is pretty lazy with giving new names. The Lynxes were actually named after the necromancer cat in this post in our language when we first saw them, not the other way around.

Have fun and see you next week.

Week 1: The Duke and The Water God

Have you ever watched the Grudge or Ju-On and wondered: if Kayako killed me, wouldn’t I turn into a ghost myself? And then what stopping me from coming back for a fair fight?

Well, I’ve got your question covered, as the Vietnamese indeed had a folktale using this very motif before it was even considered cool. While it might not be the first, it’s sure exciting as heck. And instead of a ghost, the antagonist is a freaking god.

That’s the story inspired by the life of Ngô Đình Điền – or the Điền Duke, who lived about 300 years ago.He was brother to Ngô Nhuận Phi, the concubine of Trịnh Cán, which is what made him a Duke. Now, I must clarify the historical setting of the story a bit to avoid confusion.At the time, Đại Việt (former name of Vietnam) was in a state of division. The north was ruled by the Trịnh Kings, while the south was under the governor of Nguyễn Kings (King here means Wang or Vương in Chinese and Vietnamese, respectively). Both of those kings still worked under the Lê Emperors (Emperor is Di or Đế), but only on paper, as the emperors were more or less just puppets of the Trịnhs. Yet, the people were so attached to the Lê dynasty that both kings dared not overthrow the emperor. Well, not after someone else tried and failed magnificently, but that would be another story for another day. Just know that the thought of overthrowing the dynasty was there. Trịnh Cán was the eleventh king, who had all the power of the puppet emperor.

Điền Duke quickly became the admiral. Then one day, a flood destroyed the dam at what’s now the town of Ý Yên. Trịnh Cán asked the Duke to go there and fixed the problem, which he gladly agreed on, unbeknown to him, that would be his last mission – at least in the fairy tale.

Quick note: in the original folklore “Yin Yang battle,” he’s simply known as a Duke with a last name Điền.

I. The first encounter

When the Duke’s ships got to the place, one of the scouts suggested they should go into the temple of the Water God and give an offering so that they would be allowed to enter the village. The righteous Duke refused, thinking that because he was on a mission issued by the King, the Water God wouldn’t dare to cause any trouble. I should note here that Kings and Emperors in Vietnamese/Chinese culture are special, almost as if they’re counted as gods themselves; therefore, they have respect from gods and can even give decrees that create, exile, or promote minor gods. Yet, as his ships were passing by the temple, they froze in the middle of the river. His soldiers rowed as hard as they could, but their ships wouldn’t move an inch.

The Duke was irritated. He went to the bow of the ship and said:

“You are a god reside in a temple, being praise upon by the locals, yet you let them suffer by letting the flood broke their dam. And now you even have the audacity to stop me from fixing it? Know your place and help me, then I’ll let you be. But if you dare to cause any more trouble, I’ll burn your temple down myself!”

(I know you folks like short posts, but I just have to add this line. So freaking badass!)

The Water God was boiled with rage; thus, he called upon a fleet consisted of five ghost ships, on which were fish-headed soldiers ready to drown the Duke’s vessel. The Duke was unhinged. In fact, he was a seasoned Taoist himself. He used spells, made and used talismans, and pointed his sword toward the ghost ships, then ordered his men to shoot arrows toward the phantasms. The battle was tense and lasted an entire day. In the end, the Water God knew he was outgunned and made all his ships vanish again. The Duke arrived safely at the village.

Men 1:0 god.

(Side note: here’s the tricky part of translating Vietnamese folklore, the word “phù thuỷ” used in the Vietnamese version can mean witch, wizard, shaman, witch doctor, etc. depend on the context. Our ancestors are really lazy with names, and we just have to deal with it. I chose Taoist because the crafts the Duke performed were typically theirs.)

But the Water God had not given up yet. And now he knew that it was a bad idea to take the duke head-on.

II. Round two, fight!

After a day or two examining the field, the Duke and his men began fixing the dam. It went smoothly at first, but at the very moment when the whole project was finished, the Water God struck. He ordered all the water animals to ram on the dam, right at the spot where it had just been fixed. The dam collapsed, and the hard work of hundreds of people was in vain.

Not willing to give up, the Duke ordered people from the neighboring towns to rebuild the dam, but it was destroyed the second time. Tired from all the rebuilding, the town folks asked the Duke to take a step back so that they could finish the dam. He agreed to it at the end, at least on the outside, and go to the temple to apologize. The dam was fixed in no time, now twice as big and sturdy as the last two combined. The Duke was pleased. He went to the temple for the third time (including the time when his ships passed by it, but he didn’t come in), saying it was all a lie. And now, as the dam was so strong, the Water God wouldn’t be able to take it down again.

Enraged, the Water God turned into a giant fish and rammed as hard as he could into the dam, destroying it for the third and final time. The Water God balanced the score!

However, that was the last straw that broke the camelback. The Duke was so pissed that he was about to do something so shocking that I bet most of you can’t predict what happened in the third battle.

_He massacred the god’s servants!

III. How he committed the act.

The Duke wouldn’t let a god that petty and evil roam about much longer. He ordered his men to scout the river. They found a small crack underwater where the Water Gods and his underlings lived, and they reported it to the Duke.

He then ordered his men to isolate the crack using bamboo, rock, stone, and wood. With that done, the Duke used a hill worth of quick lime to boil everything in that said creek alive…

(Um… I hope that most of us know that fairy tales and folklore are f***ed up by now. But if you didn’t, considered this as a fair warning)

Losing all his men and didn’t want to go head-on against the Duke magic, the Water God could only watch as the people rebuilt the dam. He wasn’t killed by the quicklime, probably because he was a god, and gods wouldn’t die from the effects of the Yang realm.

A couple of months passed, and the Duke was severely sick. He knew this was the revenge of the Water God, yet couldn’t do anything against it. He either passed away after some time or ended his life himself depend on which version you read.

So 2:2 on the match of God vs. Men.

IV. Final battle

Just now, I realized that this story also broke the “golden three” rule :))

The Duke appeared in his sister’s – the King’s concubine – dream, saying he’s worried that the petty god will enact his revenge on the people after he had been dealt with. Also, he wasn’t planning on going out that easily and wanted his revenge. The Duke asked his sister to burn joss paper in the form of soldiers, battle elephants, canons, etc., for him so that he could settle the score with the Water God once and for all.

The concubine did just that, and after some time, an invisible battle took place on that same river, right in front of the Water God temple. The people there heard sounds of weapons clashing, cannons roaring, and water shooting into columns everywhere.

When the sounds stopped, the river was filled with dead fish, turtles, shrimps, and all those animals. And the dam at that village wouldn’t break down anymore.

Now, at this point, there were actually two endings.

The more popular one is that the Duke told his sister in the dream again that even though he won, he couldn’t finish off the Water God completely. So he asked his sister to build him a temple right in that village to keep an eye con that petty god. From then on, people didn’t need to go to the temple of the Water God out of fear anymore.

The second ending was more severed. The Water God died at the end, appearing as a dead uhm… thuồng luồng (a dragon-like creature that I will touch on in a later post). Its blood dyed the river red. The people were overjoyed and dedicated the shrine to the Duke instead. This ending came with a slight tweak at the beginning of the story where the god demanded human sacrifice, or else he would flood the place to take lives himself.

V. My comments on this:

_ Well, I think that while other creatures and magics are a bit shorter to cover, I chose this story over them, as it showcased one of the less well-known – yet very crucial – aspects in Vietnamese Folktales and Mythology: being human-centric. Humans deal with their own problems in most cases, may that be gods, demons, or monsters. The gods either have to reincarnate as humans or play only a supportive role. And at the end of the day, men win, as you have seen in this very folktale. So keep this in mind :))

_ Why the Duke was mad: I think I need to explain this a bit so you folks can understand his action. Basically, Vietnamese don’t often worship any god simply because they were gods. Gods in Vietnamese legends were more or less just another race of super-humans. They’re only worshipped IF AND ONLY IF they help the people and steer clear from taking innocent lives. Vietnamese had never feared our gods. Should they stop acting godly and show intentions of harming humans, they’re then treated as monsters to be put down, regardless of how powerful they are. And then men or women to lead the uprising that dethroned or killed said gods are then worshipped. It’s like that saying Itachi said to Naruto in Naruto Shippuden, “it’s not that those who become Hokage get recognition, but those who are recognized that become Hokage,” in Vietnamese lore, it’s not those who are gods that get worshipped; instead, those who get worshipped become gods.

_ How I used it in my book: just for anyone curious, the main character of my novel is the descendant of the Duke, though I used the last name Điền to honor the lore.

Have fun and till we meet again.

He died, and I woke up…

Below is the second short story titled He died, and I woke up… in response to the prompt: “Start your story with an ending and work backward toward the beginning.”

It was in the afternoon when my grandpa passed away. As I woke up from my nap, I was in a daze. My grandma was in shock; she was crying. My parents came home early that day. As everyone was scrambling around, I fell into my own bubble of thoughts. A world without my grandfather was not going to be an easy one. This, I knew in my heart. Still, the final lesson he had managed to teach me in the last month we spent together was that “sometimes, in life, when nothing seemed to be going your way, you just have to take a leap of faith.” And so, with those words still ringing in my ears, I took a leap.

Earlier that day…

“So what was it you wanted to tell me earlier, grandpa?” – I asked as I sat at his desk and was coloring the picture he had drawn me. I was in third grade. It was a beautiful day, and I didn’t have to go to school. As usual, my parents had already gone to work, so there were only my grandparents and me at home. My grandma was cooking in the kitchen, and my grandpa was entertaining me after I was done with homework.

When he didn’t reply, I glanced over to see him staring at me, apparently deep in thoughts. Slipping down from the chair, I came over and hugged him. He patted my back before started to say something, just as my grandma’s voice came in:

“Lunch is ready, you two! Come out and eat!”

That sentence rang up a sense of déjà vu, and I vaguely heard my grandpa mumbled something about “goodbyes” and “timing.” But as I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears and looked up at him, he simply smiled and said:

“Let’s go eat, kiddo! I’ll tell you later.”

That morning…

My dad was seeing the acupressure doctor, Mr. Long – who treated my grandfather, out when the medicine man suddenly turned around and walked back into the house. As I had no school that day, I shifted at the breakfast table and craned my head to hear what he told my grandmother and parents:

“I have a bad feeling today.” He’d said, “And I fear he felt as much given what he told me. He may not make it until tomorrow. It’s best that you make preparations.”

A vague sense of déjà vu washed over me, and I didn’t quite hear what my grandma had said. Knowing her, though, it was probably overreaction or something along the line of asking if there was anything he could do. My grandpa hadn’t been well for quite some time now. Over a year ago, he had a stroke during one of the meetings he was usually going to back in those days. Ever since, he had been in and out of hospitals, meeting all kinds of doctors, both western and eastern ones. This acupressure doctor had been a miracle worker, or at least the most suitable. My grandpa’s conditions were getting noticeably better by the day.

I slipped down from the chair and ran into my grandpa’s room. He was sitting in his favorite chair, reading a newspaper. Seeing me, he glanced up and smiled:

“Ah, there you are! No school today?”

“No, Grandpa! I’d told you two weeks ago, we have two days off this week.” There was that déjà vu again… I guessed this wasn’t the first time my grandpa had forgotten something like that.

“That’s good, child. It’s good that we get to spend this day together. Now, I’d like to tell you something.”

“Yes, grandpa?”

He looked at me and was about to say something when my parents called from outside:

“Nam! We’re leaving for work. Come out and say goodbye!”

I glanced back, my grandfather simply nodded:

“Go ahead! It can wait.”

Three days earlier…

It was a Saturday afternoon. I was waking up from my nap when I heard my grandparents talking.

“Promise me!” He was saying, “Promise me you’ll see him finish University before you join me!”

“What are you on about?” She replied, “You’ll live through this and see it yourself!”

Silent. Then, “Just promise me!”

“Oh, alright, fine! I promise!”

“Good,” My grandpa said, “He’s waking up!”

I groggily rubbed the sleep – and an odd sense of déjà vu – away and sat up as my grandma came over to the bed. As my house only had two bedrooms, I usually sleep in my parents’ one. However, today workers were cutting down trees outside the window of that one, so my grandparents let me sleep in theirs instead.

“What were you two talking about?” I asked. My grandparents glanced quickly at each other, and then my grandma said:

“Nothing, dear! Just old people stuff. You had a good sleep, I hope?”

“Yes, grandma. It was great.”

“Good. I shall go get you something to eat!” She said as she stood up and walked out of the room.

“So what were you talking about before I woke up?” I tried to ask my grandpa again.

He looked at me for a long time before finally said:

“I supposed I should tell you now. Come here, Nam!”

Just as I got down from the bed, though, my grandmother came back with a cup of bean soup in her hands. As I took it from her and started sipping, my grandparents began talking about my studies. When I looked at him with a silent question, he simply looked back with eyes that said, “it can wait.”

A week ago…

I came home that day with a bad grade in Literature. It wasn’t the first, and I knew it wasn’t going to be my last. So much for dreaming of becoming an author someday. My grandma was strict, so she had me knelt out in the yard as punishment. It was supposed to last one hour, but fifteen minutes in, my grandpa came out with a mischievous smile on his face:

“Come on, kiddo! She’s busy cleaning up the mess I made. Now you and I are going to have some fun.”

Our fun activity had simply just been tending to the garden, but I didn’t mind. Watching my grandpa gardening had always filled me with happiness I could never quite explain.

“Do you know why I garden, kiddo?” My grandpa suddenly asked as he plucked out a rotten leaf.

“Because the plants in our garden can be used as medicines and save lives?” I ventured a guess.

“True, but that’s just why these particular plants are grown here, not why I tend to them.”

“Then why?”

“Because I love to do it, kiddo. There needn’t be any other reason.” He replied, “Gardening makes me happy.”

“But I thought drawing makes you happy. Or playing the flute.”

“In a way, they do. Because they make you happy, and that always makes me happy. But no, before you, drawing and playing the flute helps me relax; it’s not the same thing as being happy. Gardening makes me happy, just like telling stories makes you happy.”

“But I’m no good at it.” I looked down to the ground.

“You can always learn to get better at something, kiddo. But not everyone is as lucky as we are to have already found what makes us happy.” He turned around and beckoned me with one hand, “Now come here. I want to show you something!”

I stood up from the step I was sitting on and jogged over to him. In front of us was his kumquat tree; its fruits are often used as cough medicines. My eyes followed my grandpa’s fingers to find a grey and odd-looking shape underneath one of the leaves.

“That’s a swallowtail butterfly cocoon.” My grandpa explained, “I saw it a few days back and was going to get rid of it, but I figured this is something you’d like to see happens.”

As I watched, the cocoon slowly cracked open, and low and behold, a butterfly – one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen emerged before our very eyes. Still marveling at the sight, I heard my grandpa said beside me:

“You know, Nam, when that butterfly was just a caterpillar, every day was a challenge for it. I could have caught it at any point, and because this was my garden, I would have wanted to get rid of it, so it couldn’t harm the trees I have growing here. Even when going into that cocoon, it didn’t know whether or not it would be able to come out as a butterfly, or I’d have gotten rid of it even then. But here we are, witnessing it emerging as a beautiful butterfly. You are like that butterfly, my boy!”

“I am?” I looked over at him in surprise.

“You are. As you grow up, life is going to keep throwing challenges at you. And sometimes, it’ll get so hard you’ll wonder if you could even keep going. But at times like that, I want you to remember today – this very moment – and have faith. Sometimes, all you can do is have faith, keep looking forward, and make a jump for it. And just like I’d decided to let the butterfly live for you to see, life will sometimes let you spread your wings and fly, too. But you must first have faith in yourself. That’s why they call it a ‘leap of faith,’ kiddo!”

“Have you also taken leaps of faith, grandpa?”

“Yes, plenty, my boy!” He smiled warmly at me. Then something flashed underneath his eyes, and his tone turned serious, “Now, there is something else I must tell you. I fear there isn’t much time left!”

“Yes, grandpa?”

He stared at me, but before he could say anything, the gate bell rang, and he looked over to see who was there. The smile returned to his face as he glanced back at me:

“Maybe later, kiddo. It can wait!”

Two weeks ago…

“She said in two weeks, we’d have 2 days off from school, grandpa!” I excitedly told him as I saw that it was him who came to get me from school that day. Ever since he had that stroke, he’d hardly walked me home from school anymore. Before that fateful day, he used to walk me home almost every day. Before that day, everyone used to say he was strong for his age, able to jog for miles without needing to catch his breath. Now, he needed a cane to walk anywhere, and ever so often, he’d need to sit down and rest.

His canes were about the most marvelous things I’ve ever seen, though. They were all carved in dragons’ shapes, with the handle being the dragons’ heads, their snout biting down on different sizes orbs. No two canes of his were exactly the same, either. And he had a total of five. He would often let me play with the ones he wasn’t currently using, pretending I was a wuxia character.

As I cheerily told him about my day at school while we walk back home, he laughed encouragingly and asked more questions for me to keep going. As I told him about the Literature exam that I was pretty sure I had failed, he simply smiled and said:

“Don’t worry, kiddo! I’ll have your back if anything happens.”

When we were nearing our house, waiting on the last traffic light to cross the street, my grandpa suddenly said:

“There is something I should probably tell you!”

I turned to face him, “Yes, Grandpa?”

But just as he was about to speak, someone called out:

“Oh, Mr. Độ, is that you?”

We looked over; it was a man in his forties. He jogged over to us, smiled at me, and said:

“And you must be his grandson!”

My grandpa smiled:

“So you have come to see me off? I must say, though, this is better than you see me weak and frail on my deathbed.”

“Oh, master, always a joker!” The man said, “You will live until you’re a hundred.”

“It’s good to see you again, Quang!” My grandpa chuckled, “Though I doubt I’ll live that long, it’s nice to know you think that highly of this old fool.”

He then turned to me and said, “Nam, I’d like you to meet Mr. Quang, my old student. Quang, as you have guessed it, this is my grandson, Nam.”

After the pleasantries, we invited Mr. Quang into our house, and I went to do my homework while my grandpa and his old student reminisced about their shared past.

Three weeks ago…

“What has gotten into you, child?” My grandma half-scolded me, “Your grandpa needs rest if he is to recover! You shouldn’t come here every night demanding he read you a bedtime story. You’re almost ten years old!”

The words brought up uneasiness and an odd sense of déjà vu in me. It wasn’t as if I didn’t understand what my grandmother was saying. It was just that, for the past week, I’d been having a gripping fear something terrible was going to happen soon and that I should spend every waking moment I can with my grandpa.

“It’s okay, dear!” My grandpa said, “Let the boy come. I want to spend time with him, too.”

“I give up!” My grandma said, “You two are always like that! Fine, have it your way! But five minutes! That’s it! You need your rest!” She told my grandpa, then turned to me, “And you need to let your grandpa rest!”

As she finished, she retreated back to her bed on the other side of the room.

My grandpa beckoned me over to sit next to him on his bed. He took the picture book I hold in my hands from me, opened it up, and started to read.

The story was “Sơn Tinh, Thủy Tinh.” It was about the eighteenth Hùng Vương – one of the first kings of Vietnam – looking for a husband for his daughter. Two contenders showed up: Thủy Tinh – symbolizing water, flood, nature itself; and Sơn Tinh – representing the mountain, dams, and the will to conquer nature. In the story, Sơn Tinh eventually won the hand of the princess; and Thủy Tinh, in his rage, raised the flood to attempt to take her back. The people and animals joined Sơn Tinh and built dams to hold back Thủy Tinh, who eventually lost and retreated. But he would come back every year to challenge Sơn Tinh, beginning a rivalry that lasted through centuries.

As the story was coming to an end, my grandpa looked over at me and said:

“And just as Sơn Tinh has always been there to beat Thủy Tinh back every year, I’ll always be here when you need me. So there’s no need to fear, kiddo! Fear is a part of life, but you mustn’t let it control you. The people in the story, they feared Thủy Tinh, too. Because he was a force of nature, something we can’t really win against,” just like death. “But they stood up to him and joined Sơn Tinh in the fight against him. Be brave, my grandson! Be brave, look toward tomorrow, and make sure it’s better than today! And trust that I’ll always be there for you,” even after I’m gone.

Another wave of déjà vu washed through me as I made my way back to my parents’ bedroom. Oddly enough, the gripping fear that had clawed at my heart ebbed down after that night…

A month ago…

He died, and I woke up…

Cold sweat soaked the back of my shirt as I sat up on my bed…

It was an afternoon just like this one when he passed away…

And… I think my grandpa knew it was coming! He had said his goodbyes to everyone, from his student to his friends and family, even the doctor who was treating him.

“Have you had a bad dream, child?” My grandma asked.

I dizzily glanced over to see her sitting in the chair at the edge of the bed, watching over me with worry in her eyes. Blinking, I realized I had been crying in my sleep and raised my hands to wipe away the tears as I answered her:

“It’s nothing, grandma! I just miss grandpa so much!”

“Me, too, dear! Me, too!” The worry in her eyes was replaced by warmth, “But, he’s just gone for a routine check-up. He’ll be back with us in two days!”

A pang of déjà vu hit me so hard my ears were ringing as I asked:

“He’s alive?”

“Well, of course he is, dear!” Then dawning realization seemed to flash under her eyes as she came over and hugged me, “It was just a bad dream, my boy!” she said as she patted my back, “Your grandpa will live until he’s a hundred…”

Those words seemed familiar. So familiar I could have sworn I heard my grandpa chuckled with a reply, “I doubt I’ll live that long.” But the overwhelming relief at the fact my grandpa was alive, and it was just all a bad dream pushed the thought to the back of my head.

He was alive! And I still have time to spend with him! I’d make sure I’d make every minute count. I’d spend every waking moment with him!

***Author’s note: While this was the chosen prompt for submission, I thought I’d challenge myself a bit, so elements that could make this short story fit into other prompts are also presented, though they are up to interpretation.

A re-telling gone horribly wrong…

Below is the first story, A re-telling gone horribly wrong… in response to the prompt: “Write about an author famous for their fairy tale retellings.”

I was the young king of my own fairytale-retelling now, and my queen was coming to kill me!

It was not always the case, though.

Before all of this had happened, I remembered being on my laptop, reading negative reviews and hate comments I had gathered throughout the years. Fun times! Reading the words of snobs who think they were saying something you didn’t already know really helped keep the writer’s blocks away.

Truth be told, they weren’t saying anything but the obvious to me. I knew that all the logical flaws that supposedly inspired my writing mean something: the folks’ wishes, the dreams of the people, all that worthless crap. I knew that all along. You had to know the rules before breaking them, didn’t you?

Those imbeciles! Had they sold a book, a single copy, in that miserable time they called life yet?? The kids could read the original tales as many times as they want. The adults, however, wanted something else. They wanted it to be dark, twisted, and new. They wanted the villains and the heroes to switch places, as “fairytales were written by the victors,” to quote a fan. And I should know. I had all the best-sellers, the award-winners, to back me up. It was just how the industry worked. It was just how life worked. I might be a liar and didn’t appear as innocent as I presented myself to be. But so what? I had to keep my image. The author was a brand nowadays. Established names sold printed copies; debut names hardly did the same.

Well, I could say all the retellings and twists and turns did stem from wishes and dreams: mine. I had always dreamed of owning that villa since my childhood.

I woke up in this bedroom, clad in royal clothes, surrounded by servants. It took me nearly half a day to understand my situation: I was in the middle of my unfinished manuscript – a retelling of the famous folktale “Tấm Cám.” As for how I knew this was not the original version? I had made a renowned comedian cameo in one side character. His humor was too modern for the original story.

Those of you who didn’t know, “Tấm Cám” was the Vietnamese version of “Cinderella,” with some changes. Some were mine, others weren’t. But let us focus on my excellencies. In the original fable, Tấm – the goody two shoes – was killed by her jealous half-sister and cruel stepmother. Then she just kept reincarnated, constantly taking on new, unnatural forms to come back to life. There were four of them: a talking oriole, two trees standing side by side, a talking weaving frame, and a beautiful woman walking out from a fruit. She then won the king over again in that overrated “happily ever after.”

Were there only four?? I couldn’t know since after she won the king back, she killed her stepmother and stepsister in the act of bloody revenge before they could do anything.

She was better suited to be a horror story villain than a fairytale protagonist. So I chose that idea as my starting point and worked from there. A vengeful, unstoppable, unkillable evil spirit taking the form of a sweet country girl would work perfectly.

I would have had to find a way to explain Cám’s reason behind killing Tấm, though.

In my retelling, Cám – the ugly and lazy half-sibling of the heroine – was a sorceress whose mother had sealed that evil spirit away in the body of an infant – Tấm. As her beloved sister grew up, the evil spirit grew more powerful until that faithful night – the prom – when it ultimately took control of the host. Tấm was gone, for good. And now, with new, dark ambition in mind, she went to the palace, seduced the young king – that would be the current me – with a spell left on one of her shoes, and become his queen. Desperate, Cám tricked the evil spirit and killed her. “The easiest way to create depth to a character is by whitewashing it,” – said my mentor. What wise words to live by!

I was pretty proud of this… how should I put it, new breath in an old story. But right now, I knew it was not the end. The evil spirit was coming, and my best bet would be the sorceress I created.

Cám was crowned the new queen the next day after her sister’s demise, and the kingdom cheered. It should be no problem at all. This happened in the original version, too. The king’s – or should I say my – servants were more than happy that their old queen was gone. I overheard how thrilled they were that the sun shone on the palace once again. The sky above was clear, and no dark clouds gathered in a hundred miles radius. Cám put a protection spell on the whole capital and even burnt down the place where Tấm used to live. Yet, I could see the worries clouded her eyes. It seemed like we both knew the event that took place a couple of days ago wasn’t the end of her sister.

I regretted planning a tragic ending for this novel. It would definitely have helped with the sales, but I have my own life to worry about now that I’d been sucked into this world…

Days had gone by, and the talking bird had not shown up yet. The long wait burnt my confidence away, bits by bits, and I grew wary that things might not pan out as planned. Yet, life must go on, and the kingdom needed its ruler. I couldn’t hide in my room forever now, could I?

Immediately, I was knee-deep in reports, all of which I had to read through and made decisions upon. The responsibilities weighed me down as if a dozen elephants had just decided to start their own circus on my back. At least half of the reports reminded me of my early query letters. The officials wasted paragraphs after paragraphs just to show that they could write beautifully and use fancy words. Why couldn’t they get straight to the point?

The job sucked; the responsibilities were even worse. But the palace and the servants were something I could get used to. My bedroom was twice the size of my entire apartment out there, and the servants didn’t even dare to talk back.

Cám bid me farewell just a month after our very much political marriage. She said she had to go to a goddess’s shrine to learn the evil spirit’s true identity. That was supposedly the only way to defeat Tấm. Or at least, that was what I had in mind while crafting the manuscript. She left a protection charm just in case and went.

The bird had shown up.

Or, to be more precise, it decided to make an appearance last night as I was up late doing my kingly duty. It hid behind a wooden beam near the rooftop, right in plain sight and under our noses this whole time.

In the original story, the king asked: “Oh oriole, if you are my dear wife, please nest in my sleeve.” I thought if I were to say nothing, then the story wouldn’t continue. No such luck!

The protection charm Cám had left fended off the spirit. I guessed it worked brilliantly. After getting hit by the spell, the oriole could not keep its harmless form and turned into a grotesque, distorted shape. A half-woman, half-bird abomination with throbbing veins and pulsating chunks of out of placed muscles was indeed a sight to behold. And to forget as soon as possible. The evil spirit tried to say something, but its voice was muffled by the spears of my guards.

I insisted that she be burnt until even her ash could not be found.

Unlike in the fable, I was not going to make the same mistake as her stepmother. She left some of Tấm’s feathers, and from that new life sprung. I, however, incinerated everything. The evil spirit wouldn’t be able to come back from that, would it? Still, could anyone blame her?? Not only was I a modern man, but I was also the author of this retelling. Knowing both what should and would happen gave me an unfair advantage over everyone else.

I patted myself on the back over this victory.

Perhaps staying and being a king in this world wouldn’t be so bad after all. And why would it? There was no vengeful spirit chasing after me anymore.

That had not turned out to be the case.

It had been nearly a month since I had to evacuate from the palace.

At the place where the evil spirit was taken down grew a pair of trees. It went from a sprout to sky-touching tall overnight, destroying the roof in the process. People started going insane here and there, claiming they could see a pale shadow hidden between the branches, hanging herself with a noose from her own hair. They said she whispered something to them in a language they could neither understand nor pronounce. Those poor souls went mad, and their lives were cut short, either by diseases or by suicide.

The information regarding this event couldn’t be contained. Terrified officials fled the imperial city while the worried people demanded an answer. It had become crystal clear either I had to do something about the damn tree, or we had to choose another capital.

Was there an escape, though?

Nothing was stopping the spirit from chasing after me now, was there?

A decision had to be made shortly afterward.

Sometimes a man had to face his fear.

I ordered the demon tree to be chopped down and burned the following day. What needed to be done had to be, sooner or later.

The tree spilled blood!

As the soldiers rammed their axes onto the tree, thick, red blood oozed out of it and spattered everywhere. The tree twisted and turned, its leaves rattled, making howling and crying sounds.

Tấm’s face manifested on the tree barks’ various spots, begging, threatening my soldiers to stop chopping. A woman face carved out of wood, hissing insults with her wooden tongue. A soldier tried to swing his ax to cleave the thing down, but it just moved to another part of the tree almost instantly to avoid the slash. How she managed to do all of that was beyond me. If I had learned something from my writing career, it would definitely be: sometimes, the best explanation was “it’s magic.”

The tree eventually fell, though.

And the screaming, hissing, cursing, threatening from that wooden face went silent.

She was cremated the second time. And this time, I was making sure that she wouldn’t be able to come back anymore. I ordered the ash of the tree is sealed away in four different pots, each of which buried in the four guardian shrines in each direction of the capital.

This should definitely be the last time I saw her!!

But, as it turned out, I couldn’t be more wrong, apparently.

Accidents happened every now and then. It was a part of life and what made it unpredictable, even to the brightest of minds.

But occasionally, accidents happened in such a way that makes you wonder if some force of nature or super-nature was working against you! A strong wind suddenly blew in the city that very day, knocking down the sealed pot. The ash of the tree scattered throughout the imperial city, turning everyone coming into contact with it into wooden statues with a zombie-like mentality. And this curse was infectious, just like a virus. In no time at all, the whole capital was overrun by these creatures.

There was no place to hide, no way to stop the madness that I created myself.

The evil spirit had found my hiding place.

The surrounding area was utter silent, indicating the demise of my guards.

The cloth that made the hut door was rolled up, then Tấm floated inside. Her skin was pale and had a blueish tint, her hair was wet and covered with mud, her eyes were all white, and her piercing gaze fixed upon me as if glued to my face. She came closer. Maggots wiggled happily from her rotten, swollen flesh – before falling all over me.

It was her corpse!

In both versions, traditional and mine, Tấm was killed by chopping down a betel tree she was climbing. She drowned in the pond in her old house.

I burnt her oriole body. I cremated her tree.

I had forgotten about her original corpse.

I screamed at her face, half panic and half angry. Was I always this brave?

“What do you want? Eh? What do you want?”

She remained motionless and silent.

“Look! I’m not who you think I am! I’m innocent! I’m not the king; I’m not who you’re looking for. Let me go! Please!”

I begged the corpse in front of me. Yes! I lied. But was I to blame?? I was sure that anyone in my position would do the same.

The corpse came closer and opened her mouth.

Her tongue was missing, her teeth were nowhere to be found. And yet, words escaped and echoed in my ears.

“But I know who you are… father. You created me this way, remember??”

What she said filled me with fear and panic.

“You don’t know what I wanted?? How strange. You must have known. You should have known. It was you who take it away from me from the first place: my innocence.”

She continued. Her face was unhinged. With all the rotten flesh and muscle, it was hard to express any emotion. Yet, her voice seemed joyful.

“All you had to do was right there in the book. Not yours, the fairy tale. Or are you too arrogant to admit their existence now, father? You just have to play along. But. You. Refused. You haven’t realized, have you? Too full of your ‘brilliance’ to notice? There was no evil spirit. What sealed inside me has been your ill intention all along.”

She stopped and looked down at me for the last time. Her eyes were all white, yet I could see the despise in her gaze.

The evil spirit, no, Tấm leaned down for one last whisper:

“Now, finally… I got the pen for a change. Wanna know what I’m gonna do with it? Do with you?”

I tried to scream, but the sound that came out was unrecognizable to my ears. My throat was muffled, filled with a taste I was already too familiar with: the taste of ink.

Tấm took hold of me and started to laugh – an agonizing laugh that sounded as if she was crying.

There was no more feeling from my waist down. A quick glanced at the mirror revealed why: Half of me was already a puddle of ink on the floor.

For a brief moment, before she faded away, she was herself again.

She was Tấm – the princess or the queen – as she was always supposed to be.

A great wrong was done to her. She was made into something she never wanted to be.

And all this time, all she had been doing was fighting back.

She wanted to be herself, her true self. She wished to be good. She wanted her innocence, the innocence that was cruelly ripped away from her, returned.

She wanted to speak the truth, her truth, to power that had gone and changed everything – her creator, the author – the man that had taken everything from her. And so, she did… at the cost of her very existence.

She left the world she was born into in a peaceful sadness…

“The evil spirit leaned in and whispered something to the young king. His eyes widened in fear and a dawning realization.

He screamed… a muffled scream.

The spirit laughed… a twisted and unnatural sound, almost as if it was crying itself.

The two sounds blended into one and echoed through the tiny hut as the spirit took hold of the king.

And then, both of them were no more…

As our story comes to an end, I have one last question for you, dear readers. I know who you are.

But what about you?

Do you know who I am??”

That was the ending of the newest best-seller from S.S. Manny, the author famous for his retelling of Vietnamese tales. The author himself was reported missing; no one seemed to know his whereabouts, with the detectives working on the case refusing to comment at this point. Already, fans had taken to the internet to decipher his confusing ending and speculate on potential sequels. Meanwhile, anti-fans claimed his disappearance as a publicity stunt and raged about his disregard for original source materials.

***Author’s note: While this was the chosen prompt for submission, I thought I’d challenge myself a bit, so elements that could make this short story fit into other prompts are also presented, though they are up to interpretation.