THE STORY OF THE AGED MOTHER A Japanese Folktale by MATSUO BASHO

Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied them with food, and their humble were peaceful and happy. Shinano was governed by a despotic leader who though a warrior, had a great and cowardly shrinking from anything suggestive of failing health and strength. This caused him to send out a cruel proclamation. The entire province was given strict orders to immediately put to death all aged people. Those were barbarous days, and the custom of abandoning old people to die was not common. The poor farmer loved his aged mother with tender reverence, and the order filled his heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought a second time about obeying the mandate of the governor, so with many deep hopeless sighs, the youth prepared for what at that time was considered the kindest mode of death. 

Just at sundown, when his day’s work was ended, he took a quantity of unwhitened rice which is principal food for poor, cooked and dried it, and tying it in a square cloth, swung and bundle around his neck along with a gourd filled with cool, sweet water. Then he lifted his helpless old mother to his back and stated on his painful journey up the mountain. The road was long and steep; the narrowed road was crossed and recrossed by many paths made by the hunters and woodcutters. In some place, they mingled in a confused puzzled, but he gave no heed. One path or another, it mattered not. On he went, climbing blindly upward – ever upward towards the high bare summit of what is known as Obatsuyama, the mountain of the “abandoning of aged”.

 The eyes of the old mother were not so dim but that they noted the reckless hastening from one path to another, and her loving heart grew anxious. Her son did not know the mountain’s many paths and his return might be one of danger, so she stretched forth her hand and snapping the twigs from brushes as they passed, she quietly dropped a handful every few steps of the way so that they climbed, the narrow path behind them was dotted at frequently intervals with tiny piles of twigs. At last the summit was reached. Weary and heart sick, the youth gently released his burden and silently prepared a place of comfort as his last duty to the loved one. Gathering fallen pine needle, he made a soft cushion and tenderly lifting his old mother therein, he wrapped her padded coat more closely about the stooping shoulders and with tearful eyes and an aching heart said farewell.

 The trembling mother’s voice was full of unselfish love as she gave her last injunction. “Let not thine eyes be blinded, my son. A” She said. “The mountain road is full of dangers. LOOK carefully and follow the path which holds the piles of twigs. They will guide you to the familiar way farther down”. The son’s surprised eyes looked back over the path, then at the poor old, shriveled hands all scratched and soiled by their work of love. His heart smote him and bowing to the grounds, he cried aloud: “oh, Honorable mother, thy kindness thrusts my heart! I will not leave thee. Together we will follow the path of twigs, and together we will die!”

Once more he shouldered his burden (how light it seemed no) and hastened down the path, through the shadows and the moonlight, to the little hut in the valley. Beneath the kitchen floor was a walled closet for food, which was covered and hidden from view. There the son his mother, supplying her with everything needful and continually watching and fearing. Time passed, and he was beginning to feel safe when again the governor sent forth heralds bearing an unreasonable order, seemingly as a boast of his power. His demand was that his subject should present him with a rope of ashes. The entire province trembled with dread. The order must be obeyed yet who in all Shining could make a rope of ashes?

One night, in great distress, the son whispered the news to his hidden mother. “Wait!” she said. “I will think. I will think” On the second day she told him what to do. “Make rope twisted straw,” she said. “Then stretch it upon a row of flat stones and burn it there on the windless night. ” He called the people together and did as she said and when the blaze and died, behold upon the stones with every twist and fiber showing perfectly. Lay a rope of whit head ashes. 

The governor was pleased at the wit of the youth and praised greatly, but he demanded to know where he had obtained his wisdom. “Alas! Alas!” cried the farmer, “the truth must be told!” and with deep bows he related his story. The governor listened and then meditated in silence. Finally he lifted his head. “Shinano needs more than strength of youth, ” he said gravely. “Ah, that I should have forgotten the well-know saying, “with the crown of snow, there cometh a wisdom!” That very hour the cruel law was abolished, and custom drifted into as far a past that only legends remain.

About Matsuo Bashō

The Soul of the Great Bell by Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)

          The water-clock marks the hour in the Tachung sz’, in the Tower of the Great Bell: now the mallet is lifted to smite the lips of the metal monster—the vast lips inscribed with Buddhist texts from the sacred Fa-hwa-King, from the chapters of the holy Ling-yen-King! Hear the great bell responding!—how mighty her voice, though tongueless! KO-NGAI!

          All the little dragons on the high-tilted eaves of the green roofs shiver to the tips of their gilded tails under that deep wave of sound; all the porcelain gargoyles tremble on their carven perches; all the hundred little bells of the pagodas quiver with desire to speak. KO-NGAI—all the green-and-gold tiles of the temple are vibrating; the wooden goldfish above them are writhing against the sky; the uplifted finger of Fo shakes high over the heads of the worshippers through the blue fog of incense! KO-NGAI!—What a thunder tone was that!

          All the lacquered goblins on the palace cornices wriggle their fire-coloured tongues! And after each huge shock, how wondrous the multiple echo and the great golden moan, and, at last, the sudden sibilant sobbing in the ears when the immense tone faints away in broken whispers of silver, as though a woman should whisper, “Hiai!” Even so the great bell hath sounded every day for well-nigh five hundred years—Ko-Ngai: first with stupendous clang, then with immeasurable moan of gold, then with silver murmuring of “Hiai!” And there is not a child in all the many-coloured ways of the old Chinese city who does not know the story of the great bell, who cannot tell you why the great bell says Ko-Ngai and Hiai! Now this is the story of the great bell in the Tachung sz’, as the same is related in the Pe-Hiao-Tou-Choue, written by the learned Yu-Pao-Tchen, of the City of Kwang-tchau-fu.

          (1) Nearly five hundred years ago the Celestially August, the Son of Heaven, Yong-Lo, of the “Illustrious” or Ming dynasty, commanded the worthy official Kouan-Yu that he should have a bell made of such size that the sound thereof might be heard for one hundred li. And he further ordained that the voice of the bell should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver; and that the face and the great lips of it should be graven with blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be suspended in the centre of the imperial capital to sound through all the many-coloured ways of the City of Pe-King.

          (2) Therefore the worthy mandarin Kouan-Yu assembled the master-moulders and the renowned bellsmiths of the empire, and all men of great repute and cunning in foundry work; and they measured the materials for the alloy, and treated them skilfully, and prepared the moulds, the fires, the instruments, and the monstrous melting-pot for fusing the metal. And they laboured exceedingly, like giants neglecting only rest and sleep and the comforts of life; toiling both night and day in obedience to Kouan-Yu, and striving in all things to do the behest of the Son of Heaven.

          (3) But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mould separated from the glowing casting, it was discovered that, despite their great labour and ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for the metals had rebelled one against the other—the gold had scorned alliance with the brass, the silver would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore the moulds had to be once more prepared, and the fires rekindled, and the metal remelted, and all the work tediously and toilsomely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard and was angry, but spake nothing.

          (4) A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even worse. Still the metals obstinately refused to blend one with the other; and there was no uniformity in the bell, and the sides of it were cracked and fissured, and the lips of it were slagged and split asunder; so that all the labour had to be repeated even a third time, to the great dismay of Kouan-Yu. And when the Son of Heaven heard these things, he was angrier than before; and sent his messenger to Kouan-Yu with a letter, written upon lemon-coloured silk and sealed with the seal of the dragon, containing these words:

(5) “From the Mighty Young-Lo, the Sublime Tait-Sung, the Celestial and August, whose reign is called ‘Ming,’ to Kouan-Yu the Fuh-yin: Twice thou hast betrayed the trust we have deigned graciously to place in thee; if thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall be severed from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!”

          (6) Now, Kouan-Yu had a daughter of dazzling loveliness whose name—Ko-Ngai—was ever in the mouths of poets, and whose heart was even more beautiful than her face. Ko-Ngai loved her father with such love that she had refused a hundred worthy suitors rather than make his home desolate by her absence; and when she had seen the awful yellow missive, sealed with the Dragon-Seal, she fainted away with fear for her father’s sake. And when her senses and her strength returned to her, she could not rest or sleep for thinking of her parent’s danger, until she had secretly sold some of her jewels, and with the money so obtained had hastened to an astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise her by what means her father might be saved from the peril impending over him. So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the Zodiac—the Hwang-tao, or Yellow Road—and consulted the table of the Five Hin, or Principles of the Universe, and the mystical books of the alchemists. And after a long silence, he made answer to her, saying: “Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mixed with the metals in their fusion.” So Ko-Ngai returned home sorrowful at heart; but she kept secret all that she had heard, and told no one what she had done.

          (7) At last came the awful day when the third and last effort to cast the great bell was to be made; and Ko-Ngai, together with her waiting-woman, accompanied her father to the foundry, and they took their places upon a platform overlooking the toiling of the moulders and the lava of liquefied metal. All the workmen wrought at their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering deepened into a roar like the roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red lake of metal slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold, and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu prepared to give the signal to cast.

          (8) But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his head and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet as a bird’s song above the great thunder of the fires—“For thy sake, O my father!” And even as she cried, she leaped into the white flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast up a whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided quakingly, with lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.

          (9) Then the father of Ko-Ngai, wild with his grief, would have leaped in after her, but that strong men held him back and kept firm grasp upon him until he had fainted away, and they could bear him like one dead to his home. And the serving-woman of Ko-Ngai, dizzy and speechless for pain, stood before the furnace, still holding in her hands a shoe, a tiny, dainty shoe, with embroidery of pearls and flowers—the shoe of her beautiful mistress that was. For she had sought to grasp Ko-Ngai by the foot as she leaped, but had only been able to clutch the shoe, and the pretty shoe came off in her hand; and she continued to stare at it like one gone mad.

          (10) But in spite of all these things, the command of the Celestial and August had to be obeyed, and the work of the moulders to be finished, hopeless as the result might be. Yet the glow of the metal seemed purer and whiter than before; and there was no sign of the beautiful body that had been entombed therein. So the ponderous casting was made; and lo! when the metal had become cool, it was found that the bell was beautiful to look upon and perfect in form, and wonderful in colour above all other bells. Nor was there any trace found of the body of Ko-Ngai; for it had been totally absorbed by the precious alloy, and blended with the well-blended brass and gold, with the intermingling of the silver and the iron. And when they sounded the bell, its tones were found to be deeper and mellower and mightier than the tones of any other bell, reaching even beyond the distance of one hundred li, like a pealing of summer thunder; and yet also like some vast voice uttering a name, a woman’s name, the name of Ko-Ngai.

          And still, between each mighty stroke there is a long low moaning heard; and ever the moaning ends with a sound of sobbing and of complaining, as though a weeping woman should murmur, “Hiai!” And still, when the people hear that great golden moan they keep silence, but when the sharp, sweet shuddering comes in the air, and the sobbing of “Hiai!” then, indeed, do all the Chinese mothers in all the many-coloured ways of Pe-King whisper to their little ones: “Listen! that is Ko-Ngai crying for her shoe! That is Ko-Ngai calling for her shoe!”

About Lafcadio Hearn

Why Sinigang? By Doreen G. Fernandez

Rather than the overworked adobo (so identified as the Philippine stew in foreign cookbooks), sinigang seems to me the dish most representative of Filipino taste. We like the lightly boiled, the slightly soured, the dish that includes fish (or shrimp or meat) vegetables and broth. It is adaptable to all tastes ( if you don’t like shrimp, then bangus, or pork), to all classes and budgets, (even ayungin, in humble little piles, find their way into the pot), to seasons and availability (walang talong, mahal ang gabi? kangkong na lang!).

          But why? Why does sinigang find its way to bare dulang, to formica-topped restaurant booth, to gleaming ilustrado table? Why does one like anything at all? How is a people’s taste shaped?

          But still, why soured? Aside from the fact that sour broths are cooling in hot weather, could it be perhaps because the dish is meant to be eaten against the mild background of rice? Easy to plant and harvest, and allowing more than one crop a year, rice is ubiquitous on the landscape. One can picture our ancestors settling down beside their rivers and finally tuning to the cultivation of fields, with rice as one of the first steady crops.

RICE

          Rice to us is more than basic cereal, for as constant background, steady accompaniment; it is also the shaper of other food, and of tastes. We not only sour, but also salt (daing, tuyo, bagoong) because the blandness of rice suggests the desirability of sharp contrast. Rice can be ground into flour and thus the proliferation of puto; the mildly sweet Putong Polo, the banana leaf-encased Manapla variety; puto filled with meat or flavored with ube; puto in cakes or wedges, white or brown eaten with dinuguan or salabat.   

THE GREENERY

          The landscape also offers the vines, shrubs, fields, forest and tress from which comes the galaxy of gulay with which we are best all year round. “Back home,” an American friend commented.” All we use from day to day are peas, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and very few others.”

          The dietarily uninhibited Filipino, on the other hand, recognizes the succulence of roots (gabi, ube, kamote); the delicacy and flavor of leaves (pechay, dahong bawang, kintsay, pako, malunggay) and tendrils (talbos ng ampalaya, kalabasa, sayote); the bounty of fruits (not only upo and kalabasa, talong and ampalaya, but also desserts like langka and banana, which double as vegetables; and the excitement of flowers like katuray and kalabasa

About Doreen Fernandez

What is an Educated Filipino? by Francisco Benitez (An Excerpt)

          What is an educated Filipino and what qualities should distinguish him today? The conception of education and of what an educated man is varied in response to fundamental changes in the details and aims of society. In our country and during this transition stage in our national life, what are the qualities which an educated man should possess?

          Great changes have taken place in the nature of our social life during the last forty years. The contact with Americans and their civilization has modified many of our own social customs, traditions, and practices, some for the worse and many for the better. The means of communication have improved and therefore better understanding exists among the different sections of our country. Religious freedom has developed religious tolerance in our people. The growth of public schools and the establishment of democratic institutions have developed our national consciousness both in strength and in solidarity. With this growth in national consciousness and national spirit among our people, we witness the corresponding rise of a new conception of education – the training of the individual for the duties and privileges of citizenship, not only for his own happiness and efficiency but also for national service and welfare. In the old days, education was a matter of private concern; now it is a public function, and the state not only has the duty but it has the right as well to educate every member of the community – the old as well as the young, women as well as men – not only for the good of the individual but also for the self-preservation and protection of the State itself. Our modern public school system has been established as a safeguard against the shortcomings and dangers of a democratic government and democratic institutions.

          In the light of social changes, we come again to the question: What qualities should distinguish the educated Filipino of today? I venture to suggest that the educated Filipino should first be distinguished by the power to do. The Oriental excels in reflective thinking; he is a philosopher. The Occidental is the doer; he manages things, men and affairs. The Filipino of today needs more of his power to translate reflection into action. I believe that we are coming more and more to the conviction that no Filipino has the right to be considered educated unless he is prepared and ready to take an active and useful part in the work, life, and progress of our country as well as in the progress of the world.

About Francisco Benitez

The Hands of the Blacks An excerpts from “We Killed Mangy-Dog and other Mozambique stories” by Luis Bernardo Honwana

            I don’t remember now how we got onto the subject, but one day Teacher said that the palms of the black’s hands were much lighter than the rest of their bodies because only few centuries ago they walked around on all fours, like wild animals, so their palms weren’t exposed to the sun, which made the rest of their bodies darker and darker. I thought of this when Father Christiano told us after catechism that we were absolutely hopeless, and that even the blacks were better than us, and he went back to this thing about their hands being lighter, and said it was like that because they always went about with their hands folded together, praying in secret. I thought this was so funny, this thing of the black’s hands being lighter, that you should just see me now – I don’t let go of anyone, whoever they are, until they tell me why they think that the palms of the black’s hands are lighter. Dona Dores, for instance, told me that God made their hands lighter like that so they wouldn’t dirty the food they made for their masters, or anything else they were ordered to do that had to be kept quite clean. Senhor Antunes, the Coca Cola man, who only comes to the village now and again when all the Cokes in the cantinas have been sold, said to me that everything I had been told was a lot of baloney. Of course I don’t know if it was really, but he assured me it was. After I said yes, all right, it was baloney, then he told me what he knew about this thing of the black’s hands. It was like this: - ‘Long ago, many years ago, God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, many other saints, all the angels that were in Heaven then, and some of the people who had died and gone to Heaven – they all had a meeting and decided to make blacks. Do you know how? They got hold of some clay and pressed it into some second-hand moulds. And to bake the clay of the creatures they took them to the Heavenly kilns. Because they were in a hurry and there was no room next to the fire, they hung them in the chimneys. Smoke, smoke, smoke – and there you have them, black as coals. And now do you want to know why their hand stayed white? Well, didn’t they have to hold on while their clay baked? When he had told me this Senhor Antunes and the other men who were around us were very pleased and they all burst out laughing. That very same day Senhor Frias called me after Senhor Antunes had gone away, and told me that everything I had heard from them there had been just one big pack of lies. Really and truly, what he knew about the black’s hands was right – that God finished making men and told them to bathe in a lake in Heaven. After bathing the people were nice and white. The blacks, well, they were made very early in the morning, and at this hour the water in the lake was very cold, so they only wet the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet before dressing and coming into the world. 
            But I read in a book that happened to mention it, that the blacks have hand lighter like this because they spent their lives bent over, gathering the white cotton of Virginia and I don’t know where else. Of course Dona Estefánia didn’t agree when I told her this. According to her it’s only because their hands became bleached with all that washing. Well, I don’t know what to think about all this, but the truth is that however calloused and cracked they may be, a black’s hands are always lighter than all the rest of him. And that’s that! My mother is the only one who must be right about this question of a black’s hands being lighter than the rest of his body. On the day that we were talking about it, us two, I was telling her what I already knew about the questions, and she just couldn’t stop laughing. What I thought was strange was that she didn’t tell me at once what she thought about all this, and she only answered me when she was sure that I wouldn’t get tired of bothering her about it. And even then she was crying and clutching herself around the stomach like someone who had laughed so much that it was quite unbearable. What she said was more or less this: ‘God made blacks because they had to be. They had to be, my son. He thought they really had to be… Afterwards he regretted having made them because the other men laughed at them and took them off to their homes and put them to serve like slaves or not much better. But because he couldn’t make them all be white, for those who were used to seeing them black would complain, He made it so that the palms of their hands would be exactly like the palms of the hands of other men. And do you know why that was? Of course you don’t know, and it’s not surprising, because many, many people don’t know. Well, listen: it was to show that what men do is only the work of men… That what men do is done by hands that are the same – hands of people who, if they had any sense, would know that before everything else they are men. He must have been thinking of this when He made the hands of the blacks be the same as the hands of those men who thank God they are not black!’ 
            After telling me all this, my mother kissed my hands. As I ran off into the yard to play ball, I thought that I had never seen a person cry so much when nobody had hit them.

About Luis Bernardo Honwana

I am an African Child by Eku McGred

I am an African child
Born with a skin the colour of chocolate
Bright, brilliant and articulate
Strong and bold; I’m gifted
Talented enough to be the best
I am an African child

Often the target of pity
My future is not confined to charity
Give me the gift of a lifetime;
Give me a dream, a door of opportunity;
I will thrive
I am an African child

Do not hide my fault
show me my wrong
I am like any other;
Teach me to dream
And I will become
I am an African child

I am the son, daughter of the soil
Rich in texture and content
Full of potential for a better tomorrow
Teach me discipline, teach me character, teach me hard work
Teach me to think like the star within me
I am an African child

I can be extra-ordinary
call me William Kamkwamba the Inventor;
Give me a library with books
Give me a scrap yard and discarded electronics
Give me a broken bicycle;
Plus the freedom to be me
And I will build you a wind mill
I am an African child

We are the new generation
Not afraid to be us
Uniquely gifted, black and talented
Shining like the stars we are
We are the children of Africa
Making the best of us
Yes! I am an African Child

The Secret Of Living by J. Carie Sexton

To appreciate beauty and the gifts nature brings,
To discover the pleasure of life’s simplest things,
To remember the blessings we receive every day,
To explore new horizons as we travel our way—
This is the Secret of Living.

To find hope in each raibow that appears in the sky,
To give comfort to strangers who may be passing by,
To keep smiling whenever there’s a task to be done,
To be gracious in losing and give thanks when we’ve won—
This is the Secret of Living.

To build meaningful values in this life that we live,
To be full of compassion and be willing to give,
To regard as a treasure every friendship we’ve made
And to find peace and love even time cannot fade—
This is the Secret of Living.