Spendor of Okinawa Bonus: A story from the Ryukyu Kingdom

 

The Bamboo Flute

 

Long ago in a village at the foot of Mount Onna, there lived a kind-hearted old man. One day, on his way out to work in the fields, he came across a group of children who had caught a mouse and were playing around poking it with a stick. Feeling sorry for the mouse, the old man said, “Hey, if you kill a living thing, God will punish you. Come on, let it go!” And so the mouse’s life was spared.

Some time passed and then one day, when the old man had gone off to the fields to work and was eating his rice ball for lunch, a mouse showed up as if out of nowhere and bowed his head deeply. “Thank you for helping me the other day. I owe my life to you. I’d like to return the favor, so please come to my home,” the mouse said.

The old man replied, “Oh,at first,  I didn’t realize who you were. I’m so delighted you’re okay,” and gently stroked the mouse’s head. The mouse chirped happily, “Choo-choo-choo!”, and said, “Please grab hold of my tail and close your eyes.” The old man, a bit puzzled at the request, did as he was told, grabbed the mouse’s tail and shut his eyes tight. As soon as he grabbed the tail, the old man had the strange feeling of walking on a cloud.

        

Then, the old man then heard the mouse’s voice, “Okay, that’s good enough.” When he opened his eyes to look, there he was at Mouse Mansion. Lots and lots of mice were waiting for him expectantly in preparation for a feast. With great delight, the old man feasted with them on exotic foods and drinks.

    

When the old man was about to go home, the mouse brought him a gift wrapped in paper and gave it to him saying, “This is a going-away present. Please bury the contents behind your stove. It’s really something quite nice.”

        

Holding the mouse’s tail, the old man returned home, opened the wrapping, and found a bamboo flute. He immediately buried it behind his stove. The very next morning a bamboo shoot sprouted there. When the old man watered it, the bamboo grew quickly in spurts, right up through the roof, up through the clouds, and by nightfall it had  reached the Milky Way. When the astounded old man stroked one of the bamboo’s joints, gold came out. When he tried stroking a second and third joint, more gold came out, just like before.

(Bamboo flutes)

Hearing this story, a greedy old man in the village became outrageously jealous. He immediately went out and caught a mouse and snarled, “Mouse, give me a bamboo flute, too, or else I’ll feed you to the cats.” So, a bamboo flute ended up in the greedy old man’s hands, and he buried it behind the stove in his house, just as the kind old man had.

When the bamboo sprouted the next morning, he watered it. It grew quickly in spurts and by evening it reached right up to the Milky Way. To save the bother of stroking the bamboo joints, the greedy old man climbed up to the roof, wrapped his arms around the bamboo pole, and just slid all the way down to the stove.

However, it was not gold that came out of the joints but a smelly brown slime.. Surprised, the greedy old man tried to get away, but strangely he could not loosen his grip. Just like an octopus, both arms gripped the bamboo tightly. Meanwhile, the brown stinky slime flooded down the bamboo and completely buried the greedy old man’s house and him with it.

The villagers figured that if heaven has a treasure room, it must have a toilet as well. So, they joked about the old miser, “With all the treasure  in heaven, the likes of him manages to poke his way into its toilet.” 

Note on pronunciation: Okinawan consonants sound much the same as their alphabetical counterparts in English. Vowels follow the sounds of the a,e,i,o,u of Italian or Spanish. Doubling means that the vowel is lengthened, not repeated.

 

Story: compiled and written in Japanese by Kyoko Ishikawa. English translation by William A. O’Donnell (odomnail@rocketmail.com), edited by Thomas Marsh.