On first reading it the story struck me as charming and harmless, at least in the manner it is likely to be read now, but as I look more into it, and read some of the comments on the Good Reads page I link to above, I am less sure (one comment says it is “not necessarily racist but very ignorant”). Sadly, some very ignorant and indeed obviously racist stereotypes of Chinese people were common in American popular culture at around the time the book was published, as is clear from this clip from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Such cultural sensitivities are understandable, although I wonder if many of those mentioned above were more of a concern years ago before Chinese people were such an established part of the culture of countries such as The United States where the book has won many awards, and before Chinese culture became more widely known. The intentionally absurd long name given to the first-born son, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, is considered by some to be culturally offensive because it gives the impression that Chinese consists of nonsense syllables. The fact that it was moved to a Chinese setting is offensive to some readers because the two cultures are so different. According to some people, the story was originally Japanese. The story is a retelling of an older story. The book is lovely, but the main reason I write about it today is that it is controversial and gives us opportunity to think about many different features of the stories we know and which help to build up our ideas about the world we live in. The story is an example of what is called an origin myth, which means that it provides a mythical explanation for the way something is in the world we know today, here, the fact that Chinese names tend to be very short, which, now and again, may seem strange to Westeners or speakers of other languages (this was certainly true when the story was first written, or ‘retold’ to use the word on the front of the book). The book is funny and sweet, and tells the story of two brothers growing up in China a long long time ago. Sorting books in the library today I came across a wonderful book by Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent called Tikki Tikki Tembo. (Another one taken from the library Fronter page, where it was filed under year 5 and above this one from a few weeks back.)
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