Hakka Folktales (5)

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

Hakka Folktales (5)

The Bird With a White Face

Once there was a family consisting of a mother, her son, and her
daughter-in-law. The son was always out on business. One day he went 
again out on business, and before he left he told his wife to be nice to
his mother. She should always buy lean pork for his mother. His wife
promised it to do so. But as soon as the husband had left, his wife showed
no filial piety at all. The pork, which she bought every day, she ate
herself. She cooked the leeches, which she reared in a big pot in the
rear courtyard, for her mother-in-law. The old woman was old and her eyes
could not see, so she did not know it, but she wondered why the pork was
so tough. So she asked the daughter-in-law:
"How come the pork is so tough?"
The daughter-in-law replied:
"It is old meat."

After a few days the husband came home and he first greeted his mother:
"Mother, was your daughter-in-law filial to you when I was away?"
The mother replied:
"Very filial, the pork she made for me was very tough."
The son was astonished. He went to the kitchen. There was pork in the pot,
but in another pot were leeches. He got very excited and angry. He went to
the backyard, where he really found a jar full of leeches. He called his
wife out and asked her to tell him what there was in the jar. When she
stretched her head to see the jar he cut her head off with one stroke and
put her head and body into the jar which he covered it with a lid. 

When he opened the jar after a couple of days, a bird with a white face
came out and and flew off crying:
"Oh me miserable" "Oh me miserable" "Oh me mesirable"
Ever since this kind of birds have been crying this way "Oh me miserable" 
until present day.

excerpts from 
Studies In Hakka Folktales
by Wolfram Eberhard
edited by Professor Lou Tus-k'uang