Reply to comment

"Yeh-Shen" is a really different take on the "classic" Cinderella story.  For a while, I had been obsessed with various fairytales and myths, so I have actually read several versions of Cinderella over the course of a few years.  With the king sighing in relief when the show didn't fit the step mother and step sister, or when the stepmother and sister were killed (but no one cared...)"Yeh-Shen" is the first cinderella story I've read that incorporates humor.  I found this interesting, and of course, funny.

It is also evident that most cinderella tales were used as models of female behavior.  In Yeh Shen, the step sister is chatty, uncouth, and awkward whereas Yeh Shen is demure and graceful.  Besides being entertainment, fairytales seem to act as conveyors of morals, mode of conduct, and cultural norms.