The Chinese Wonder Book

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Norman Hinsdale Pitman. The Chinese Wonder Book

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BY SYLVIA LI-CHUN LIN

My mother was a wonderful storyteller. On summer evenings, when it was too hot to stay indoors, my sisters and I would hose down our cement front yard with cool water. Then, after dinner, we would spread straw mats on the ground, bring out a chair for our mother and a tin of coiled mosquito incense, and lie on the mats, looking at the twinkling stars as my mother told us many of her stories. One of her favorite stories was called The Gentleman Snake, a Chinese version of the Beauty and the Beast. Whenever we asked her to tell this story, she would first say that we’d heard it so many times that our ears were probably filled up with it. But then she would slowly wave her palm leaf fan and begin the story, complete with interruptions—silly questions and comments—from us:

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“A big, nice Simmons? ”

“What’s a Simmons?”

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