The Cowherd and
the Weaving Maiden – an ancient Chinese folk tale:
Adapted from the translation
by Judith Huang (www.judithhuang.com )
A
young Cowherd and his old water buffalo walked past a stream where the King of
Heaven’s seven daughters were bathing. The water buffalo said: “Niu
Lang, you are a good and virtuous young man, and I want to see you happy. The
youngest [of the seven daughters] is the most talented and beautiful. Go and
take the fairy robe of brightest red, and she will be your wife.” Niu Lang
followed the water buffalo’s instructions. When the daughters saw Niu Lang and the old
buffalo, they put on their robes and flew away, but the youngest daughter could
not. Niu Lang approached her and said
kindly “Here is your fairy robe – I will give it to you. But first, promise to be my wife.” The
youngest daughter, Zhi Nǚ, whose name means Weaver Girl, for she wove the cloth
of the sky, looked at the handsome young cowherd and agreed.
As
time went on, Niu Lang and Zhi Nǚ fell deeper in love and Zhi Nǚ gave birth to
a son and a daughter. However, the king of heaven realized that the colours of
the sky were not as beautiful as before, and he asked his mother, Wang Mu Niang
Niang, to look for his missing daughter. Wang Mu Niang Niang saw the happy
family, and saw how Zhi Nǚ had taught the villagers the secret art of weaving,
and she flew into a rage. She was determined to snatch Zhi Nǚ away from Niu
Lang, and to force her to weave the cloth of the sky again.
The
water buffalo said to the cowherd, “You have treated me well in this life. Now,
I am near to death, and you must take my skin and make a pair of shoes out of
them, for with my skin you will be able to fly.” Niu Lang was overcome with
sorrow, but agreed to take the water buffalo’s skin. With that, the water
buffalo gave up his spirit, and the whole family mourned the loss of their kind
friend. Zhi Nǚ knew that the water
buffalo had foreseen something terrible, and waited in fear for Wang Mu Niang
Niang to find her.
Wang
Mu Niang Niang descended from the heavens and snatched Zhi Nǚ from her home
into the sky. Niu Lang cut the water buffalo’s skin into a pair of shoes and,
balancing two pails on a rod on his shoulders, he put one child in each pail
and ran as fast as the wind, up into the clouds after her. He got closer and
closer to Zhi Nǚ, until they were merely a hand’s breadth apart. Suddenly, Wang Mu Niang Niang threw down her
diadem, and it changed into a vast river of stars, separating the two lovers.
If you look into the sky at night, you will see Niu Lang and Zhi Nǚ, two stars
[Altair and Vega] on opposite sides of the river of stars [the Milky way], and
if you look closely, you will see two smaller stars beside Niu Lang’s star [Altair]: their children.
Moved
by the true love of Niu Lang and Zhi Nǚ, the magpies of the world decided to
form a bridge across the Star River once a year, on the seventh day of the
seventh month, so that the couple and their children may meet again.
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At
the end of World War II, hundreds of volunteers from the Red Cross and other
organisations worked to bridge the distance between husbands and wives who had
been separated. By compiling lists of camp
internees and facilitating the exchange of messages, they helped many couples
and families to reunite.
A
camp list, compiled by the Red Cross on 4th September 1945 – 17 days
after the Japanese capitulation - includes my Oma’s name: Marianne Van Bael-Knoll.
Disease,
death and an unimaginable deterioration of conditions combined with an
increasingly mature consciousness to make the months spent in Kamp Makassar
seem interminably long to my Mother and Aunt.
“Makassar was the camp in which we spent the longest time”, Mum
suggested. In reality however, it was
far less than the time spent in Bandung:
only around six months before the end of the war in the Pacific. But neither the Japanese surrender on 17th
August 1945, nor the swift arrival by September of volunteer workers, were to
bring the freedom that they had prayed for.
Their release was complicated further by a rising wave of nationalistic and
anti-Dutch fervour amongst groups of Indonesian youths (the Permudas) who,
armed with weapons obtained from the Japanese soldiers, terrorised those of
mixed Indo- European blood who had fought so hard to remain on the outside of
the camps. A lack of any political
control led to anarchy, violence and even murder during the “Bersiap” months at
the end of 1945 (Bersiap = “be ready”).
Because of this period of chaos and fear, most Indo-Europeans (including
my Oma’s dear friend Moesje) left their homeland once Indonesia became fully
independent from the Dutch.
A
social security ID card (for those
released from prison -Bevrijde geinterneerden) places my family still in Batavia (Jakarta)
on 12th December 1945, having finally emerged from Makassar prison
camp sometime during the intervening three months.
No longer a Japanese euphemism, the
internment camps finally did become “protection camps”. In a dark and twisted comedy of irony, the
dreaded gedek (bamboo and barbed wire fence), for so long a symbol of their
plight and focus for all thoughts of freedom, had become the only thing
standing between them and certain danger. And those who played the role of
protecting them? The same Japanese
soldiers who had imprisoned them for almost three years.
By A. M.
Steensma http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl
By 26th December 1945, Tikus
(my Oma) had made her way to Bandung and was issued 280 guilders, 4 metres of
fabric and a food parcel from the red cross (Rood Kruis):
Those food parcels would have meant the difference between life and death
for my mother who was so weak and ill by the end of the war that most things, including time, were a
blur. Except the hunger.
During our
many conversations over the months of my research, the only time that my Mum
has broken down was when she was talking about the hunger in Makassar:
“We were so
hungry. It was painful. I will never
forget that hunger as long as I live”
In my own world, where food has always been in plentiful supply, I
could never understand why Mum would reheat for herself time and again the same
old leftovers and would never throw out even so much as a grain of rice. Until now.
“Some brave
women went to the Japanese and complained about the food situation. As a punishment, the whole camp had to go
without food for two days. When the
guards realised that people were getting very very sick, they must have got
worried because the next thing we knew we were given a huge amount of
food! I still remember we were given pea
soup – and it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. But all that food created even more problems
as our bodies couldn’t handle it – some people even died because of this”.
After
reading other accounts from former internees in Makassar, I have to conclude
that what she remembers are two separate and unrelated events.
Anak
Bandung’s mother, Nel, was one of the women who had complained to the guards
and her description of the ordeal is posted on the BBC People’s War Website:
“When
sixteen of us from our hut, at the beginning of July, rebelled and asked for
more and better quality [rations], we had our heads shaved as a humiliation and
thrown in a very small, windowless punishment hut. The following day all the
food for that day was gathered up and taken to the big field. We had to dig a
large pit and throw our food in and cover it with earth. The whole camp then
was denied food for two days. The camp hospital also had to share in this scandalous
punishment. The Japs also switched off the water supply where they could. This has been the worst punishment ever.”
Malnourished
and weak as my mother was, she would have had no sense of time. It is
likely only to have been after the Japanese capitulation, more than one month
after that event in July, that food was suddenly made available in increased quantities
as relief supplies started to come in.
” We had to put them on strict
diets” Odyssey, a volunteer who took care of women in one of
the concentration camps on Java after liberation, posts. “A normal portion of food would have
killed them. We did not have anything to serve them the pitiful portions.”
Mum’ s
explanation of these events, her own conclusion, was most likely a child’s rationalisation for
something that was unexplainable, like so many senseless things that they
endured. How was a child supposed to
understand that the war was over whilst they were still behind the gedek? To comprehend that their tormentors could
become their protectors, and with that the inherent notion that all things can
and inevitably will change, would have required a shift in consciousness too immense
for a child to make and most likely beyond the capabilities even of the adults.
Odyssey goes
on to describe how some women, their every thought mired by residual fear and a
strong survival instinct, even claimed that the relief workers were stealing
their food. They spat accusations at the
volunteers who had come to help them build a bridge, to transition from certain
death to an uncertain life.
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The International
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a [one hundred year old] international
humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million voluteers,
members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health,
to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human
suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, religious beliefs, class, allegiance, or
political opinions. ( Wikipedia)
During 2012, the Red
Cross was involved in projects to alleviate the suffering of those displaced or
in need of support as a result of disaster or war all over the world. It continued
to provide psychosocial assistance to those in the Fukoshima area in Japan, as
well as support for the rebuilding of hospitals and clinics; It set up shelters
and organised water rescues for people trapped by flood waters in Jakarta and
the UK; and it provided first aid
training and support services during the London Olympic games.
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