HAPPY MIRROR (A Japanese Folk Tale)

                Many years ago in Japan, there lived a father, mother and their dear little girl. There was not a happier family in all the islands of Japan.

            They took their little daughter to the temple when she was just thirty days old. She wore a long kimono, as all the Japanese babies do. On her first doll festival, her parents gave her a set of dolls. There was no finer set anywhere. Her dolls had long, black hair, silky and smooth, and were clad in gowns of satin and silk.

            Her third birthday was a happy day. Her first sash of scarlet and gold was tied around her small waist. When that happened, she was no longer their baby daughter. She was their little girl, fast growing up. By the time she was seven, she was helping her parents in many ways. She could talk and dance and sing, and oh! Her parents loved her dearly.

            One day, a messenger brought exciting news. The emperor had sent for the father. He had to go tot Tokyo at once. Tokyo was a long way off and the roads were rough. The father would have to walk every step of the way for he had no horse. There were no railways or even jinrikishas to travel on.

            The little girl was glad her father was going to Tokyo. She knew that when he came back, he would tell her many interesting stories. She knew that he would bring her presents, too. The mother was happy because the father had been sent for the emperor. This was a great honor.

            At last, all was ready. The father looked very fine as he started out on the long trip. He was going to meet his emperor, so he dresses in fine robes of silk and satin. The little family stood on the porch of the little house to bid him goodbye. “Do not worry. I will come back soon,” said the father. “While I’m away, take care of everything. Keep our little daughter safe.”

            “Yes, we shall be alright. But you must take care of yourself. Come back to as soon as you can, said the mother.

            The little girl ran to his side. She caught hold of his sleeve to keep a moment. “Father,” she said, “I will be very good while waiting for you to come back.”

            Then he was gone. He went quickly down to the little garden and out through the gate. There, they could see him go down the road. He looked smaller as he went farther away.

            Then all they could see of him was his peaked hat. Soon, that was out of sight, too.

The days seemed very long for the mother and the little girl. Many times each day, they would pray for the good father. They prayed for his safe journey. The days slipped by one and morning, the little girl saw someone coming over the mountains. She ran to tell her mother. Could that be her father?

            They both went to the garden gate to watch. As he came nearer, they knew that he was the father. They both ran to meet him, the little girl on one side, the mother on the other side. They were all happy again.

            As soon as they went into the house, the little girl ran to untie the father’s straw sandals. The mother lovingly took off his large straw hat. Then they all sat down on the white mat, for the father had bought some presents.

There in a bamboo basket was a beautiful doll and a box full of cakes. “Here,” he said to the little girl, “is a present for you. It is a prize for taking care of Mother and the house while I was away.”

            “Thank you, Father dear,” said the little girl. Then she bowed her head to the ground. In a second, she had picked up her lovely new doll and had gone to play with it.

            Again, the husband looked into the basket. This time, he brought out a square wooden box. It was tied with gaily-colored ribbon. He handed it to his wife saying, “And this is for you, my dear.”

            The wife took the box and opened it carefully. One side had beautifully carved pine trees and storks on it. The other side was bright and shining as smooth as a pool of water. Inside, there was something made of silver. She had never seen so lovely a present. She looked and looked at the pine trees and stork, which seemed almost real. Then she looked closer at the shining side.

            Suddenly she cried, “I see someone looking at me in this round thing! She is very lovely.”

            Her husband laughed but said nothing. Then the mother’s eyes grew big with wonder. “Why, the lady I see has a dress just like mine!” she said. “She seems to be talking to me.”

“My dear,” her husband answered, “that is your own face that you see. What I have given you is a mirror. All the ladies in Tokyo have them. If you bring a smiling face in the mirror, you will see a smiling face. If you are cross, you will see a cross face in it.”

            The wife thanked her husband for the lovely gift. She promised always to bring happy face to the mirror. She then shut it up in the box and put it away.

            Often, the mother would take out the box and look inside. Each time, she was surprised. She liked to see her eyes shine. She liked to see how red her lips were. She always brought a smiling face to it, so that she might always see a smiling face. Soon, she grew tired of looking in the box and she put it away. Only once a year did she open it and look at her face. She decided to save the lovely gift for the little girl when she grew up.

            The years went by. The little girl grew to be a woman and no longer played with dolls. Instead each day, she helped her mother about the house. How proud her father was of her! He saw that she was growing more like her mother. Her hair was the same; her eyes were the same; her mouth was the same. She was the very image of her mother.

            One day, the mother called her daughter and said, “My daughter, I have something to give you. Once each year, you are to look into it.”

            She took the square wooden box from the drawer. Carefully, the daughter untied the ribbon. Wondering, she lifted the cover and looked at the mirror.

            “Why, Mother!” she cried. “It’s you! You look just as you used to look when I was a little girl.”

            “Yes, dear,” the mother answered, “that is the way I looked when I was young. Be sure to smile when you look at me and I will smile back to you.”

            From that day on, the good daughter kept a box near her. Once each year, she would open it. Her mother’s words were always true. Always, she saw her mother’s face. Oh, the joyful surprise! It was her mother, more beautiful each time that she looked. She seemed to smile at her daughter and the daughter smiled back at her. The daughter remembered to bring smiles to the little box and smiles always came back to her.

The Lady Chang by Marjorie Clark

When the Lady Chang arrived in the city of Canton, she possessed nothing in the world but the clothes she was wearing, the jewels on her fingers, and most precious of all, her little son, Ko. Everything else – her husband, her fine home and all her servants, even the village in which she lived – had been washed away and lost forever in the great flood that had swept down upon them so suddenly.        

               The Lady Chang had one thing more, however, and that was her own brave spirit. She knew that she must now devote herself to the future and of little Ko, and never waste time in thinking of the past.  “I will sell my jade ring,” she said,” and I will buy a small house, just large enough for two of us.”

               She found a house which costs very little, for it was in a poor part of the city, near the rubbish dumps. Every morning the carts rumbled by, taking all the city rubbish to be burned and buried.

               “I am lucky to have this small house,” the Lady Chang told herself. “I can clean my house in the morning: I can play, with my dear son, Ko, each afternoon; and in the evening, when he is asleep, I can weave and embroider. The cloth I make will sell easily, and so I shall be able to feed and clothe both Ko and myself.”

“Little Ko grew fast and was a great joy to her.

“What are you doing, my son?” asked his mother one day, as she turned from her weaving to catch him at play.

“I am the butcher, Mother,” laughed Ko. “I am working in the market. See how cleverly I kill this goat, and how I cut it up for customers.” And he raised his voice and shouted harshly as he had heard the butcher shouting each day in the market place.

               The Lady Chang sighed. “Indeed, my son learns quickly. He should not be here to copy the ways of rough men. He should be learning to be a scholar as his father was.” She searched the city and found a house near the university.

               “To live here will cost a great deal,” she thought. But she did not hesitate for long. She left their house near the market and sold her last ring of pearl and silver, and soon she and her son were living in their new house.

               Now indeed, life was hard for the Lady Chang. In order to live and pay for Ko’s

schooling, she had to rise at dawn each day. She would clean her house, do the cooking, wash the clothes, and then work hard at her weaving until far into the night.

Ko learned quickly, and the Lady Chang often smiled as she wove the bright

threads and watched the cloth growing beneath her busy fingers.

“Ko will be a learned man,” she told herself proudly. “Already his teachers speak highly of him. He works so well that I care not that I must sit here weaving all day long.”

               She threaded her loom with fine threads and began to weave a lovely pattern of gold and silver and scarlet.

               Each day when Ko returned from his studies, he admired his mother’s work. “This is the most beautiful piece of cloth you have ever woven, Mother, he said one day. “Surely you will strain your eyes with such fine work.”

“Ah, my son,” she laughed, “this is to pay for you to be a wise and great man. My eyes are a poor price to pay for that.”

               By this time Ko had grown to be a fine, tall lad. So easily and so well had he

learned his lessons that he began to grow proud and vain. “I know as much as any of the professors who try to teach me,” he said scornfully.

“That is boastful talk,” the Lady Chang reproved him. “You should learn

humility as well as knowledge from books, my son. You still have much to learn, I fear.”

                A little later, however, Ko came home one day and threw his books on the table. “I have finished with schooling,” he said defiantly. “I am tired of learning. I know quite enough to earn my living.”

                 “Do not stop!” cried the Lady Chang. “You will be a wise and great man like your father, if you would only complete your studies.

“No, Mother,” declared Ko. “I mean what I say. I have finished with Learning.”

                 The Lady Chang did not argue with him. She reached across the table and got a sharp knife that lay there. Then, without a word, she slashed her weaving from the loom. The cloth fell, its gold and silver and scarlet in a tangled unfinished heap at her feet.

               “Mother!” cried Ko in horror, “what have you done? All your hard work is wasted! If you had worked a little longer, this would have been a perfect piece of cloth. Now it is nothing but a half-finished rag.”

               The Lady Chang looked at her son with grave eyes. “Son, you could have been a wise and great man,” she told him. “Now you will be little more than a peasant who toils in the fields or labors in the market place.”

                Ko’s cheeks grew red as he looked again at his mother’s lovely work, ruined and unfinished. Then, he picked up his books. “I have learned a lesson, Mother,” he said in a low voice. “I will finish my studies. They’ll not be wasted. I may never be a great man, but I will try to be a wise one.”

               The Lady Chang’s heart was filled with joy as she watched Ko return to his studies. She drew her seat close to the loom and began to pick up the threads once more. Many, many hours of hard work lay before her, but that which she had already done would not be wasted.

Ko indeed became a wise man, and great one. He was famous through all the land of China.

                 And now, when Chinese children are told tales of brave people in their country’s history, they listen to the story of the Lady Chang, who was not afraid to ruin her most perfect work in order to teach a lesson to her son.