“Yeh-Shen, A Cinderella Story” by Aai-Ling -China

There are many differences to this story compared to the Cinderella story that I am sort of familiar with. The difference of both stories is that in this story, “Yeh-Shen, A Cinderella Story”, it takes place in an era of dynasties which in China were when the rulers were family. This is also taking in a very ancient time because the step mother, father, and Yeh-Shen lived in a cave. But in the original story they lived in a palace. Another difference is that the step mother in this story only has one daughter but in other the step mother has two daughters. Now, the major difference would be that instead of doves in the Cinderella that I am familiar with, it is a fish that apparently the step mother kills and Yeh-Shen keeps the bones because she was told that the bones of the fish has powers. I believe that because this is the Chinese version of Cinderella that they used fish because that is one of the animals that they value. When I think about why they would use fish at first, the first thing the first thing that came to mind was Yin and Yang. Which basically means the balance of life and I think that this is connected to the fish because it is known that China sees fish as an abundance. What did stay the same was that the step mother hated Cinderella and Cinderella disobeyed her step mother and still went to the festival (even though I know it as a party not a festival). Also , the king and Cinderella got married. I was surprised that the step mother and her daughter were forced to live in their cave until they die by flying stones though.

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