A Bedtime Story

I'm usually the one who puts the kid down to bed these days. For some reason he falls asleep much faster when I read to him than when his mom does. He probably gets bored, but there is evidence to the contrary, which is that he actually wants me to read to him.

I normally read an English book to him, but do spot translation into Chinese. My translation are basic and inelegant. My wife still laughs at me for the time I translated "Pride and Prejudice" as "骄傲与歧视" instead of the infinitely more graceful "傲慢与偏见". Thus "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" becomes "查里与巧克力工厂" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" becomes "狮子，巫婆与衣柜".

This week, however, he's been wanting stories read in the original Chinese. Fortunately we have a huge stack of nighttime storybooks. Most of the tales are saccharin-sweet, and completely forgetable. Occassionally, however, they throw in something just utterly brutal.

Take this story, "The Little Mouse". It's about a little orphan girl called Mouse who lives near a garbage dump. Okay, fine. She befriends a little mouse who dances for her in return for food. Cool? Well, now the story takes a morbid turn as the mouse is captured by a woman.

The woman put the mouse in a cage. It scurried around the cage hoping to escape. All the neighbors came over to see what the fuss was about. The little girl was sobbing in her heart.

"Bring some gasoline!" the woman said. "We're going to little this little thing up!"

The little girl stood to the side of the door, tears pouring from the corner of her eyes. The woman poured the gasoline on the mouse, then lit it on fire, instantly turning the little mouse into a fireball rolling around the cage.

"Take that!" the woman yelled.

The children all called, "Awesome!"

But the little girl was broken-hearted.

Suddenly, the fireball ran out of the cage and into the woman's house. Everyone was terrified and yelled, "The house is on fire!"

The woman cried hopelessly, "Help put the fire out! Help put the fire out!"

But the the fire burned bigger and bigger, crackling as it rose towards the sky.

Geez, just read the kid some Stephen King while you're at it. This reminded me of the two most disturbing stories I read as a kid, probably when I was about 10 years old.

I can't remember the name of the first book, but it was about a group of puppies. One was unfortunate enough to be discovered by a gang of very bad eggs indeed, who proceeded to kick and beat the puppy before finishing it off by swinging it over their heads by its tail. I tore up the book after that part.

The second was a story by Roald Dahl about a bookish little boy who loved swans. He is tormented by two bullies, who discover his fondness for the majestic birds. They shoot one, then saw off its wings and tie them to kid's arms. After beating and humiliating him, they lash him to a railroad track.

Lovely, no?

Tonight I read a different book, one less prone to include stories about torturing animals to death. Ah, here's a harmless one about a little boy named Guoguo who decides to run around buck nekkid on a hot summer day. Let's take a look, shall we?

As Guoguo ran around the forest, an owl suddenly pointed to his rear and asked, "What is that? It really looks like a big ball."

Guoguo said, "That's not a ball, it's my butt."

A small frog hopped in front of Guoguo, pointed to his belly and asked, "What is that? It looks like a little cave."

Guoguo said, "This isn't a cave, it's my belly-button."

A big fat bear rumbled over and circled Guoguo several times before stopping. He bent over, pointed between Guoguo's legs and asked, "What's that? It looks like a little sparrow?" (Sparrow? Uh, okay. --Ed.)

Guoguo said, "That's not a sparrow! It's my little wee-wee!"

More and more animals came, this one and that one. Some of them couldn't resist extending a hand to feel Guoguo, which made Guoguo shout, "It tickles! It tickles!"

People complain about the violent and sexual content in modern music, movies and video games. But is anybody left to check what's going on in storybooks?