Bedtime Stories

An old painter has painted four dragons on a temple wall, but he will not paint their eyes. If they have eyes, he says, they will fly away. One night he finally touches his brush to the wall. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a small lamp, a quiet temple, and two dragons curling up to sleep in the clouds.

Every evening Mother Carp tells the little fish about the dragon gate at the top of the river: any carp that jumps over it becomes a dragon. One bright night the smallest golden carp swims all the way there. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a long swim upstream, one high jump beside the moon, and a soft cloud to sleep on.

An old ox says the river is shallow. A little squirrel says it is very deep. The little horse has a sack of wheat to carry across before dark, and only one way to find out. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a small trip to the mill, a moonlit road home, and a river that was just right.

Something says Gudong in the pond at night, and the little rabbit runs. Then the fox runs, and the monkey, the deer, the goat and the duck. Only the big old water buffalo is calm enough to walk back and look – and it turns out to be a ripe papaya dropping into the water. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a small night noise.

On a full autumn night, a grandmother and her granddaughter sit in the yard and find a small shadow on the moon. That shadow is a white rabbit, and it is pounding medicine for children who cannot sleep. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about the tree that never loses its leaves, and two moons – one in the sky, and one in the water jar.

On the last night of the year, the mountain wakes up. Everyone in the village shuts the windows and bars the doors – until a boy named Bao finds out that the beast called Nian is afraid of red. A gentle Chinese bedtime story for New Year’s Eve, about red paper, red lanterns, and a beast who goes back to sleep.

A young man lives all alone in a little house by the river, and every evening he comes home to a cold stove. Then he finds a big green snail and keeps it in a water jar – and one day, warm meals begin to appear. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about a small house that stops feeling empty.

The father mouse is sure his daughter should marry the strongest thing in the world. So he climbs the hill to ask the sun – and then the cloud, and the wind, and the wall. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about the old tale of the night the mice are married.

A little monkey looks into an old stone well and sees the moon shining in the dark water. “The moon has fallen in!” he cries. So the monkeys make a long, wobbly chain to scoop it out – until splash, the moon breaks into pieces. A gentle Chinese bedtime story about how it is okay to make a mistake.

Long before glass slippers, there was a golden fish, a pair of golden shoes, and a girl named Ye Xian. China’s Cinderella is the oldest version anyone has found – and it is stranger, funnier, and much older than the one you grew up with.