A translation of a famous Chinese story, by Kevin Qi
Author’s note: Apparently there are like billions of versions of this story because it’s something like a thousand years old. This translation is mainly based on a version that our teacher read out of a Chinese book, probably a preschooler’s schoolbook or something, for our accelerated college class. Also, I wasn’t quite paying attention for the second half of the story.
Some of the nuances of the story may have been lost in translation, but the important details are there.
The Story
Once upon a time, an orphan boy lived with his aunt and uncle, who were not nice to him. His name was “niulang”, which translates literally to “cowman”. Er, I mean, he had no name. But everyone called him cowman. Because he herded a cow.
This cow was basically his only friend.
Also, cowman is hardworking and a decent guy. This comes into play later.
One day, the cow spoke to him and was like
“hey cowman, if you check out that stream tomorrow, you MIGHT find some ladies that are pretty chill and stuff. for marrying.”
Cowman was pretty unfazed that his cow was giving him dating advice, and also talking. He goes straight there and yeah, a girl is chilling there, just like the cow said. The girl is like some grandchild of the emperor’s wife, and she weaves the skies apparently. Her name is weaving girl.
Anyway, weaving girl knows all about cowman, for unexplained reasons. For example, she knows cowman is a really decent guy and hardworking. So she asks
“hey, lets marry”. This is pretty much a no-brainer for cowman.
YEARS LATER
So they marry and they live together happily for a while, and spawn younglings. The girl loves manual labor, it turns out. I mean she really digs it. When talking about things she loves in life, this would be up there. So they’re happy and the cow is with them too. The cow is totally alive.
But.
Weaving girl is bothered by an uncomfortable worry. Because she utterly ditched Heaven and stuff when she went to marry cowman, she’s worried that her grandmother (the emperor’s wife, btw) will come looking for her.
ANYWAYS
One day cowman finds the cow is making rivers with his eyes (he’s crying). Because cow knows he’s dying. The cow says
“when I die, you should peel off my skin. you should keep it in a safe place, because my skin could be.. useful to you. in the future, that is.”
The cow dies and cowman dutifully peels off the skin. Incidentally, around the same time, Heaven sends some guys to retrieve weaving girl. She’s flying away into the sky.
Cowman remembers the cow’s words. About the skin. He takes it out and it somehow makes him able to fly in pursuit of weaving girl. Cowman is unfazed by this. He puts the childs into baskets and pursues weaving girl.
This is where it gets weird.
The girl’s grandparents find out about this and they draw a river in the sky with a hairpin, to separate weaving girl and cowman. The river is the milky way (which is pretty unrealistic, btw). The hairpin is probably symbolic too. Anyway, people got upset so it was decreed that the two could meet one day a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, by way of magpies making this utterly gross bridge over the river.
THE END