Week 11: Reading Diary

This has been an especially busy week, so I only finished one of the reading assignments.. For this assignment, I read the Khasi Folktales.

The Tiger and the Monkeys:
This was quite an interesting story. I did not realize that tigers were afraid of monkeys, which appears to be the observation upon which this story is founded. I also thought that the overall moral was kind of strange. I could not imagine proposing marriage to an unknown bride. It kind of seems like a shallow thing to do because you would have to be acting on looks or social status alone.

The Legend of the Lei Tree:
It was kind of hard to give feedback about this story because it didn't really draw me in. I thought that it was cool that such a small bird played a huge roll in helping mankind avoid living in darkness forever.

Hunting the Stag Lapalang:
This was a really sad story particularly because it was about how a mother lost her child. It seems like a cliché phrase, but a parent should never have to bury a child.

The Goddesses Ka Ngot and Ka lam:
This is a cool story that describes how a river gained its form. It was cool to see how they indirectly incorporated the moral about being boastful.

U Biskurom:
This may be my favorite story in the collection, despite the pessimistic theme that it concludes with.. I really liked the characters and it was fun to laugh at the ignorance of mankind, assuming that the blood was from the power of their shouts.

How the Dog Came to Live with Man:
I wasn't a huge fan of this story. It was really long and I actually like dogs, so I wasn't crazy about how they were made out to be deceitful creatures.

The Stag and the Snail:
This story reminded me of a version of the tortoise and the hare that I once heard, but with a very umm... Unique? twist about why stags don't have gall bladders.

Overall these stories were pretty fun to read.

Read the original stories here!