WELCOME TO WEAVE YOUR IMAGINATION!
As the site moderator, I thought it would be nice to begin this blog with a Hmong folktale. I translated the story from the Hmong version so there were some words that have no English substitution. In order to do justice to the words, I decided to leave them in Romanized Hmong letters. If you cannot read Hmong, just sound the word out the way you would sound an English word and whatever pronounciation you get should be pretty similar to the Hmong pronounciation. Hope everyone enjoys and grasps the moral of this story.
Once upon a time, there lived two poor brothers named Ntshiab and Ntshaus. When they were young, they were very poor. When they grew older and each had a family of their own, they were still very poor. One day, they decided to seek help from Suav Xeeb Xeeb and asked him to read their fortune to explain why they were so poor.
Suav Xeeb Xeeb read their fortune and said, “If you both want a good life, you must travel to China. Go there and find an old Chinese woman who can return to grind your rice. She is the one who can help improve your lives.”
The two came home and took their horses. They then journeyed to China. There, they met an old woman grinding rice slowly and weakly next to a house. The brothers decided to ask the house owner, “Brother, may we take that old woman with us so that she may grind our rice and look after our home?”
The Chinese man answered, “If you both want her, just take her! She is old and useless. My only concern is that she will probably die before reaching your home.”
The brothers remarked, “Perhaps she won’t die that quick. How much do you want for her?”
“She is old and will soon die. Even if she stays with me, I’m tired of feeding her. If you both want her, I’ll let her go for free.”
