i will miss my fluffy
I chickened out. I have returned styx to where I adopted him. I have debated back and forth in my mind millions of times for the past few days. in the end, the cons defeated the pros. the good excuse is that I don't want him to suffer in the car for a week. The truth is I don't think I can deal with him on the road. It would be too much
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See above ^^ where I said that it's called "The Emperor's Nightingale." Are you losing reading comprehension?
The plot summarized by Wikipedia: "The Emperor of China hears that one of the most beautiful things in his own land is the song of the nightingale. He sends his courtiers to take a nightingale from the nearby forest and present her as a guest at court. The bird can communicate with the humans and agrees to come, but when the Emperor is given a robot nightingale covered with jewels, he loses interest in the real bird, which flies back to its home. The robot bird breaks down. When the Emperor is taken ill, only the song of the true nightingale can heal him."
It's by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. You can read the entire thing here: http://hca.gilead.org.il/nighting.html
The story seems to have been rewritten by Kuang-Ts'Ai Hao in 1994: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572270187/104-5880097-5871913?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
In this version, the emperor tricks a god into telling him a sacred word that allows him to evade death. But everytime he uses it, death takes someone else in his place.
Hao's version appears as bilingual editions in English/Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, and possibily others. Some editions list Andersen as an author as well, with the note "retold by" appearing before Hao's name. (Some editions don't, and this confuses the hell out of me.) I take this to mean that Hao is retelling Andersen's story, that Andersen's story was the original, and that it is not based on an actual Chinese myth. I just wanted to confirm that last part. Since you've never heard of that story before though, it seems to suggest that I'm correct in saying there is no actual Chinese source behind Andersen's story and that it is completely original on his part. Of course, the Chinese leadership rewrote certain myths and fairytales during the Cultural Revolution while others were not mentioned or taught, but I can't say if that's the case here or not. It doesn't seem to be, if only because every Chinese site I find that mentions that tale also attaches Andersen's name to it (and Wikipedia makes no mention of Asian influences of his work).
This is what I think. But I'm not sure. Even if you aren't an expert on Chinese mythology, you still have a better access to Chinese sources than me.
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