#from sri lanka

[troythecatfish]

[hussyknee]

Whenever Brits are like "tea is our national drink, our culture, our personality, our mental health" I think of our hill country blanketed in a patchwork quilt of human suffering and ongoing violent colonialism and want to smash all their tea cups. Your genocidal leaf juice is nothing to be proud of. The present day tea pluckers are the descendants of the Indians you enslaved and they still live in unthinkable poverty in the line houses you built to house them like cattle. The families whose farmlands you robbed have been starving for generations. Every sip of your leaf juice is soaked in blood and you drink it like vampires.

Tea will never belong to you. It's our legacy of grief, and your shame.

Drink your tea and shut the fuck up.

[princesssarisa]

In Cinderella Tales From Around the World, I've now reached the versions from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia: Iran, Palestine, Nigeria, Angola, Sri Lanka, India, and Kashmir.

*The Iranian variant, The Story of Little Fatima, starts out much like the Italian La Gatta Cenerentola, but then turns into a "mother as animal helper" variant, with a middle section like the Portuguese The Hearth Cat. At the beginning, Little Fatima's female teacher tricks her into murdering her mother (!!!) so she can marry her father, then abuses her. But the mother's spirit comes back as a cow and shows her daughter unconditional love by magically aiding her chores. One day the cotton she's supposed to spin falls down a well, and the cow-mother advises her to go down after it, where she'll meet a div who will urge her to do bad deeds, but to only do good deeds instead. She obeys, and the div gives her a glowing moon on her forehead and star on her chin. The stepmother wants the same for her own daughter, so she sends her into the well, but Little Fatima lies to her stepsister that she should do all the bad deeds the div orders. As a result, the div gives the stepsister donkey ears and a tail. From then on, the story becomes a standard Cinderella, with the cow providing Little Fatima's finery, except instead of a ball, festival, or religious service, the special event is the wedding of a princess, the sister of the prince who falls in love with Little Fatima.

*The Palestinian variant, Thaljiyeh ("Snow-Maiden"), starts out like Snow White, with the heroine named for her skin white as snow, and her mother dying in childbirth. As Thaljiyeh is abused by her stepmother, a kindly jinniyah (female jinn) in a well takes pity on her and fills her bucket with jewelry, but when her two stepsisters draw water from the same well, the jinniyah fills their buckets with mud, stones, and insects. So they take Thaljiyeh's jewels and finally throw her out of the house. Fortunately, she comes to the home of a poor old woman who turns out to be her maternal grandmother and who takes her in; but unfortunately (so it seems), on the way she loses a red leather shoe that was a gift from her dead father. But of course a prince finds the shoe, and we all know what happens.

*The Tender-Hearted Maiden and the Fish from Nigeria is much like the Portuguese Maiden and the Fish – the heroine gets her finery from a fish that was meant to be cooked but which she set free. But in this version, unlike the Portuguese version, there is a wicked stepmother, and the fish really is a fish, not an enchanted prince. The heroine's love interest is a king, and the festival where he falls for her is a celebration of Eid al-Fitr. After her marriage, the stepmother and stepsister sneak into the heroine's bedroom at night and cut off her hands (!), but the fishes magically restore then. When the stepmother and stepsister try to publicly mock the new queen for having no hands, they only make fools of themselves.

*The Angolan variant, Fenda Maria and Her Elder Brother Nga Nzua, is very unusual. The heroine is an orphan who lives with her older brother, but when he marries the Lord Governor's daughter, his wife turns her into a slave. But in a forest she meets an old woman with leprosy and nurses her, and as reward, the old woman gives her boxes full of riches and dresses. The ending is unusual too: the heroine doesn't marry. Instead, when the Lord Governor discovers that the elegant lady who came to church is his son-in-law's sister, he punishes the couple (at the heroine's request) by dissolving their marriage and giving his cruel daughter to another man. From then on, the heroine and her repentant brother live together in prosperity, thanks to her magically-given wealth.

*As for the Indian versions, they vary widely:

**One is basically Finette Cendron without the ogres – a poor man abandons his daughters, they find a deserted wealthy house and take up residence there, and the oppressed youngest finds finery to wear to church in the house – but with a post-marriage ending. The sisters' steal the heroines babies and make her husband think she gave birth to inanimate objects, which drives him to lock her in a dungeon, but years later her children come back as beggars, and milk miraculously flies from their mother's breasts to their mouths, revealing the truth and leading to a happy ending.

**In another, the heroine is a princess who lives happily with her father and younger brother, until a seemingly-kind widow neighbor persuades her to persuade her father to marry her. The king resists a long time, but finally gives in, yet he warns his daughter that if her stepmother mistreats her, he'll do nothing about it. Sure enough, the new stepmother sends the prince away to boarding school and treats the princess like a slave. But the princess is helped both by a cow, who secretly feeds her, and by her dead godmother's spirit, who brings her finery for a dance at another king's palace. After the princess marries and gives birth to a son, her stepsister drowns her in a well and takes her place, but as in the Grimms' Brother and Sister, the princess's spirit comes back every night to nurse her baby, and when her husband finally sees her and catches her by the hands, she comes back to life. The stepsister is brutally executed and the stepmother driven away.

**The Kashmir variant follows the "mother turns into an animal" formula, but with a few differences from the norm. The mother turns into a goat when she thoughtlessly breaks a magical taboo against eating when her husband isn't home, the Cinderella character is just one of several siblings who are all mistreated by their stepmother, and instead of losing a shoe at a special event, she loses a nose ring while washing herself in a river. The ring is swallowed by a fish, which is caught and cut open by the king's cook. The king searches for the ring's owner and marries the girl, which lets her support her siblings and free them from the stepmother.

*@faintingheroine – I think Nihal would like some of these variants. Especially the Indian one where the heroine is neglected by her father and her little brother is sent away to school, since it parallels her own situation, and the Angolan one where the heroine doesn't marry in the end but gets her brother all to herself again.

*It seems strange that this book includes so few Cinderella stories from Africa. There must be more that exist!

Coming up next: tales from East Asia, beginning with what may be the very first complete Cinderella story, Ye Xian.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @adarkrainbow, @themousefromfantasyland

[midostree-art]

Happy birthday Krishna! 08.10 🥳

[spurgie-cousin]

I know you're going to react negatively to this, but you can't (rightly) get angry about people stereotyping Americans and then turn around and stereotype Europeans. There are (apparently) 746 million people in Europe, and some of them have bullshit attitudes to weight - of course they do! I have experienced this myself! - but it is hardly a huge societal trend. You get angry when people generalise about America, is that only an acceptable reaction when the generalisation is about America?

(ok i got rid of that post before i saw this which i usually do w/ vent posts unrelated to my blog so my bad for that, but the jist of it for others was: 1. I work in social media 2. I usually work with mostly women and right now just only American women by chance 3. The women I work with run the gamut of weights and body types 4. I got a voice note at 2am from one of them sobbing she posted a cooking video and received tons of vile comments for her food choices and appearance 5. upon investigation, many of the accounts responsible were based in Europe and appeared to be women, which is in line with a trend I've noticed with other bigger female creators I've worked with. They get a disproportionate amount of hate from European women compared to any of the men or skinny women I've worked with in the past, and the comments this girl was upset about were in line with that.)

What part of literally just noticing the demographics of these people who leave comments is generalizing?? I didn't say "every single European woman is fatphobic" and I also added that there are American comments in there too obviously that are no better (if you're looking for some balance i have 100% ranted about American fatphobia in relation to religion on here multiple times), but I HAVE noticed a trend in analytics that fat American girls get a disproportionate amount of shit from European women and a lot of the comments this girl was upset about were from those accounts. That's not a generalizing statement that's based on facts and numbers I see every day.

If I need to make the caveat that I am in no way talking about every single European woman then fine there you go, I'm not saying any one thing applies to a whole population of people obviously but it is kind of exhausting to have to do that. Unless you're a part of the subset of woman based mainly in the UK/France/Germany/Denmark who has a tiktok or instagram account that you use exclusively for leaving hate comments, I'm not talking about you.

[poems-from-around-the-world]

The Un-God - Latha - Sri Lanka

Translator: Shash Trevett (Tamil)

First I made the pottu

Then I planted

Tumeric and pale-scented

Jasmine on the vine

Raw-green tumeric-yellow sky-blue violet-

Inked butterflies fluttered

And fluttered

Everywhere in the house

Filling it with their music

Every moment 

Around you

As I grew around you

You said

Not all lives 

Are conceived 

To walk the earth

Yes

You will never become

A god

They’re saying in the village

[byrobinbaker]

Ig: megan.milan Ella private day tour from kandy

[sunkern-plus]

funny (in hindsight) little ocd compulsion i remember having (partially because of autism most likely): when i was like 11 i was told by one of my teachers (one of the shit ones) that people had to wash their hands and NOT run the water while putting on soap because if you DID run the water, it contributes to global warming

but little ocdtism me did not understand the concept of abstract thinking, and i jumped right to "oh god if i run the water while i'm putting soap on my  hands i'm personally responsible for the earth getting destroyed"

[dragonairice]

Asking this out of pure curiosity:

[seavoice]

i've not been watching the world cup this time due to um, intense hatred of bcci and associated, and wasn't regretting it, but now i'm kind of sad that i'm not because streets are saying england is absolutely SHITTING the bed

[hussyknee]

Current Sri Lankan social media meltdown: a bunch of white Russian immigrants had decided to have a "white only party" in Unawatuna, in the year of the colonizer lord 2024. Mfers are consequently "in a state of shock" from the "aggressive attacks" by furious locals. In hindsight, the shitheads have realized that having an apartheid party in a sovereign Asian country would bring a "negative vibe". Apparently "none of them came up with the idea of possible discrimination much less racism!!!" and they just (I shit you not) missed other white people. Like, this was prompted by the fact that they couldn't find any other white people...at raves...in Unawatuna. I'd ask whether they were looking under rocks, but there would be unwashed racist Europeans under those at fucking Una even in the off-season.

It's all very entertaining. Even some other Russians are mad at them because some have married Lankans and have half-brown kids. Along with their second or third butthurt non-apology, they just posted saying their entire team packed up and left the country because they got slammed with so many "malicious and insulting messages" and calls and "everything from accusations to direct threats".

This result has united Lankan bros everywhere, from 4chan to twitter to Reddit, like they just personally avenged the 1815 fall of the Kandyan Kingdom. I can only assume this means nobody's bottom lines were harmed by the scandal. As a country, we love kicking people out, but we hate to watch them go.

[princesssarisa]

The next set of Donkeyskin tales in Cinderella Tales from Around the World take us first to Turkey and Syria, then down to South and East Africa, and then back into Asia through Sri Lanka, India, and finally Japan.

*There are two versions from Turkey in this collection (@faintingheroine). In one, the king resolves to marry his daughter because she fits her dead mother's clothes; she requests gowns that resemble "the sky with stars," "the ground with flowers," and "the sea with fishes," and as in the Italian versions, she disguises herself in a suit made of wood and calls herself "Wooden Mary." In the other, her finger fits her mother's ring; at the advice of a fairy, she requests gowns of gold, silver, and pearls, and then a long fur coat, all of which the devil supplies; after she runs away, she lives alone in a cave for six years before the prince finds her and brings her to the palace. In both versions, the events to which she follows the prince in her finery are three royal weddings in other kingdoms; at the weddings, the prince either gives her three valuable trinkets (version #2), or else she steals them from him (version #1). Then when the prince falls ill with longing for her, she bakes cakes or pastries for him and slips the three trinkets inside, leading to her discovery.

*The Syrian variant is a "heroine hides inside a hollow object" version, in this case a chest. It also portrays the father as "a rich Jew." While this means the heroine herself is also Jewish, which could be good representation, I doubt it was meant that way; since her Jewishness is only mentioned once in the text, while her father is constantly called "the Jew," I'm afraid it's antisemitism, implying that only a Jew would try to marry his own daughter. Especially because in the end, his daughter refuses to forgive him and the prince has him executed.

*The two South African tales aren't exactly Donkeyskin tales as Europe knows them, but they do feature a persecuted heroine dressed in animal skin. In both of these tales, a king or a chief has two wives, each with a daughter.

**In Nya-Nya Bulembu, the king favors one wife and daughter but scorns and abuses the other wife and daughter, and he forces the unfavored daughter to wear the mossy green skin of a water monster so everyone will despise her. But one day she meets an old fairy man who gives her a magic stick that will temporarily restore her human form and bring her food each day. One day a prince comes to visit, sees her during this time, and knowing her true appearance, asks to marry the "monster." When she bathes before the wedding, the green skin floats away on the river, revealing her beauty to all. Meanwhile, her stepsister – a kind girl and a friend to her, in contrast to her cruel mother – is carried away by pigeons, which serves as her wicked parents' punishment as they assume she's dead. But really she's taken to another kingdom where she marries the king and lives happily ever after too.

**In Baboon-Skins, the heroine's stepmother and stepsister are jealous of her beauty, so to protect herself and her mother from their abuse, the girl dresses herself in baboon skins to hide her beauty. Still, she remains graceful and charming, and when a young chief's servants come looking for two brides for their master, her demeanor charms them just as her stepsister's beauty does, and they choose them both. At first the chief is angry, thinking a girl who hides her appearance must be ugly, but her demeanor wins him over too, and on the wedding day, she finally discards the skins.

*A French-language version from Mauritius is called Donkeyskin and basically a transplant of Perrault's version, except for a twist at the end: the prince doesn't get sick, but secretly meets with Donkeyskin after seeing her undisguised and falling in love with her, and urges her to put a ring in a cake that his mother the queen has already ordered her to bake. When she does and he eats the cake, he holds the ring at the back of his throat, pretending it's stuck, and no maiden but Donkeyskin can pull it out.

*The tale from Sri Lanka is called The Scab Girl and is only vaguely a Donkeyskin tale. A baby girl is abandoned by her parents because they wanted a son, but two cranes find her and raise her in a cave. When she grows up, a wicked "Rakshi" discovers her and tries to eat her, so the cranes dress her in cloth covered with scabs to make her look disgusting and inedible, then send her out into the world. She becomes a scullery maid at the king's palace, but secretly takes off her scab cloth to bathe, and eventually her beauty is discovered by the king, who marries her.

*There are three Indian variants, which also bear only a slight resemblance to the European versions, and none of which include attempted incest:

**In The Disguised Princess, the heroine is the eldest of three sisters and betrothed to a prince. But on her wedding day, her jealous younger sisters put sugar in her palanquin, it attracts flies, the prince thinks the flies are attracted to her, and in disgust he has his servants abandon her in the jungle. There she meets a carpenter and has him build her a wooden suit that disguises her as a man. She journeys to the prince's palace, where she wins the prince's favor and becomes a head servant. Meanwhile, the prince is about to marry another princess, but "by accident," when the "man of wood" meets the bride, "he" knocks out her eye with his wooden hand, making her repulsive to the prince. Soon afterward, a washerman tells the prince that every day, the "man of wood" takes off his wooden shell to bathe and reveals a beautiful human form. The Prince sends for "him" and demands to see "his" beauty, and so the princess reveals herself, and the prince marries her.

**In The King and the Fairy, a beautiful golden-haired fairy is persecuted by a Deo (giant), who wants to kill her because she refused to marry him. So she disguises herself in a leather robe covered with treacle, which attracts flies. She becomes a lowly servant in an old woman's house, but one day as she bathes, one of her hairs floats downstream. A prince finds the beautiful golden hair strand and resolves to marry the girl whose head it came from. He invites all the people in the land to a feast; the fairy comes in her disguise, and an elephant approaches her and lifts her up three times, which means that she's the prince's destined bride. The prince is disgusted by her, until he learns from some watchmen that every night, four fairies come and remove her disguise to bathe and perfume her, revealing her true beauty. When she tells him her story, he devises a trick to kill the Deo, leaving the fairy free to resume her true form and marry the prince.

*In The Princess and the Cat, the princess has an enormous pet cat who becomes jealous of all her suitors and claws at them until they run for their lives. To escape from the cat's possessiveness, she runs away, disguises herself in a coat of smelly skins, and becomes known as Chamni ("skin-woman"). She becomes a servant at the prince's palace and is sent out each day to tend the elephants, and when she's alone, she takes off the skin coat. One day the prince sees her, falls in love with her, learns her story, and marries her. When the cat learns of her marriage he comes after the couple, but the prince kills him, and they live happily ever after.

*Last but not least is The Wooden Bowl from Japan, which isn't really a Donkeyskin story, but does share some of the same themes. A poor peasant girl's dying mother instructs her to always wear a wooden bowl over her head to hide her beautiful face and protect her from men's lust. She obeys, and lives by laboring in the fields, mocked and scorned by her fellow workers for the bowl, until a rich farmer takes pity on her and brings her to his house to be his wife's servant. There, the farmer's son manages to catch a glimpse of her face one day, falls in love with her, and resolves to marry her. His relatives object because of her low birth and her oddness, and though she loves him, she refuses his proposal so as not to cause discord. But in a dream, her mother's spirit urges her to accept. On their wedding day, she tries to remove the wooden bowl, only to find that it's stuck. But when the wedding ceremony is complete, the bowl shatters, releasing a shower of pearls, jewels, gold, and silver to serve as her dowry, as well as revealing her beauty.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @themousefromfantasyland, @adarkrainbow

[bijoumikhawal]

idle curiosity: does anyone I know have any recommendations for researching Buddhism from a more practical perspective, as opposed to the often philosophical/secular one presented in a lot of English texts?

[ned-gerblansky]

the only couple in south park who we've ever been given an origin story on is jimbo and ned. let that sink in

there was a lot of fabrication in it but they are the only relationship that's been given any sort of exposition

[sincerely-lily]

my bsf has just been shocked that i speak some Sinhala but i was like one i barley speak any but anyway and two im literally sri lankan what did u expect 😭😭

[dukeoftears]

I'm just a little birdie chirp chirp