Ping from a Chinese Perspective

           In [The Story of Ping], the author said that the little duck whose name was Ping has big family; he has forty-two cousins.  I know that the farmers around the Yangtze River raised many ducks for a living.  They ate duck eggs, and they also sold ducks in the market.  In the book, it said that the ducks' home was a boat.  It's true.  In the southern part of China, some farmers don't have a real home; they travel all over with boats and raise the animals on the boats.  In the book, the picture of the baskets made of bamboo was exactly the same as I saw in China; people use them to cover the ducks so the ducks can't go so far.

           In the book, the men the illustrator drew had long hair and Chinese traditional dress; that was like a hundred years ago during the Qing dynasty.  When I was growing up, I didn't see anybody dressed like or with hair as long as it was in the pictures in the book.  In the pictures, there is a little kid on the boat to help Ping to escape being cooked by boy's mother.  Children in China listen to whatever their fathers and mothers say; they are scared to not follow their parents' direction, and never do anything for fear of penalties.  This boy was brave, but the result will be that he won't have food to eat for one or two dinners.
     

          - Jun Zhu, July 6, 2001
       

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        Northern State University
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      Last updated: July 10, 2001