#Tikki tikki tembo story archive

One of the things I will writing about in this area will be Wikipedia and Google, surely the two most widely used sources of the text we read. At your age and level, it is important for you to build up an understanding about how meaning is constructed not only on the surface of the writing you read, but also in the layers beneath it. I will be writing much more about the origins of the stories we know and the debates surrounding their wider meaning. It is important for us as we read it, however, to be aware that these issues exist, and to give them some real thought rather than simply laughing along at the twists and turns of the story itself.

Whatever the facts of this, I think the story may be very useful not least because it allows us to explore some of these issues. 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.

#Tikki tikki tembo story archive

Identifier tikkitikkitembo0000mose Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8xb1kp06 Invoice 1652 Isbn 059063075Xĩ780805011661 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Old_pallet IA19342 Origin-contact Origin-note Physical items are owned or controlled by and digitized by Internet Archive Origin-organization Internet Archive Pages 54 Ppi 300 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20200927102727 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 138 Scandate 20200923164226 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 0590403125 Tts_version 4.(Another one taken from the library Fronter page, where it was filed under year 5 and above this one from a few weeks back.) Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 04:04:49 Associated-names Rose, George, 1920-1988 Raposo, Joe Lent, Blair, illustrator Boxid IA1947304 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier