Lon Po Po (translation: “Grandma Wolf”)

General Information about Item: 

• Verbal lore, fairytale
• Language: Chinese/ Shanghainese 
• Country of Origin: China
• Informant: Michelle Wu
• Date Collected: 11-09-19

Informant Data:

Michelle Wu is a senior, ’20, at Dartmouth. She is 21 years old from Cockeysville, Maryland. She is a double major in Economics and Spanish. 

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: This childhood fairytale is a spin on the well known “Little Red Riding Hood.” The story presents a moral of not trusting strangers and through the actions of the eldest sister, we can see that wit and intelligence is highly valued and rewarded in Chinese culture. 
• Social Context: Parents would tell their children these stories as bedtime stories or to pass time. Michelle says that she remembers her mother telling her this story, one school day afternoon, when Michelle brought up the tales that she was reading in school. Her mom told her that she was also told a similar story growing up titled Lon Po Po and that was how Michelle came to know the story. The story has been passed down to Michelle’s mom and now her. 

Item:

“Basically, in the olden days in China, there was a mom who lived with her three daughters. One day the mom, she went into the village, so she left her three daughters at home. So at night someone knocked on the door and so when the three girls went to answer. The person on the other side said, ‘It’s your grandma. Can I come in?’ So this grandma was actually a wolf so as soon as the three girls went to open the door, the wolf blew out all the candles because she said her eyesight was bad and so she couldn’t look at the light so everything was dark. So at night, they went to bed and then the oldest daughter felt (like) the wolf fur, and so she thought that something was wrong. And so she tried to trick the wolf grandma to go outside and so she told her plan to her two sisters. So they all went outside and then the children told the wolf that the tree outside had magic gingko nuts and that they were going to climb it to get some for the wolf. And so of course the wolf agreed and so the children climbed up the tree where there were a lot of these magic gingko nuts and shook the tree as hard as they could and then all the gingko nuts fell on the wolf and killed the wolf. And then the children went back into the house, they slept and then the next day the mother returned and so basically they just told the mother what had happened the previous day.”

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Interview of Michelle Wu (in Shanghainese) 

Interview of Michelle Wu (in English)

Informant’s Comments:

• Michelle also told the story in Shanghainese. 

Collector’s Comments:

• This story is very similar to the version collected by the Grimm’s brother’s titled Little Red Riding Hood. It also is representative of Propp’s model. The tale revolves around 3 characters (the daughters) as many other fairy tales do. The tale started with the mother leaving her three daughters behind which can be said to be absentation. Later the villain (the wolf) tries to trick the three daughters by disguising as the grandma to come into the house and presumably eat the three daughters. Though Michelle does not speak about an interdiction made by the mother before she leaves for the village, the daughters ends up falling for the trick by the wolf but only briefly as the eldest sister, the true hero, is smart enough to realize that it was the wolf and not the grandmother. By going outside, the sisters were able to work together (struggle) and with the help of the gingko nuts (probably the first donor function), they were able to defeat the wolf (victory). It was a happy ending as the wolf was punished and the wedding function was when the mom came home and the sisters told her about what happened to them. 

Collector’s Name: Anna D. Nguyen

Tags/Keywords: Folktale, fairytale, Lon Po Po, Propp’s model