Contoh Text Narrative

The water buffalo and the tiger

(Favourite stories from Chinese)

A farmer was ploughing his fields. “Why are you so lazy?” he asked his water-buffalo pulling the plough. “You are very slow and you have no strength. Look how quick and strong the tiger is! If only you could be like that.”

“Do you really think the tiger is stronger than I? take me to one now and I shall show you,” replied the water-buffalo. He was angry that his master thought he was lazy.

A few days afterwards, the farmer took him to meet a tiger. The tiger roared when he saw the buffalo coming. “What a nice meal!” he thought.

“Mr. tiger,” said the water-buffalo, “Let us see who is stronger. You can bite me three times if you will allow me to butt you three times.”

The tiger agreed. While the tiger sharpener his teeth, the water-buffalo sharpened his horns. The water-buffalo then rolled in the mud and covered himself with leaves. The tiger could not understand why. He asked the water-buffalo but the water-buffalo did not answer him.

“Come, Mr. tiger,’ the water-buffalo said, “You can bite me first.” The tiger bit him three times but he could not bite through the mud and leaves. The water-buffalo then butted the tiger. With the first butt, he tossed the tiger over his shoulder. With the second butt, he killed him.

After that the farmer treated the buffalo very well. He did not dare call him lazy and useless again.

The rabbit’s tail story

Many years ago, rabbits had long tails, not short ones, and crocodiles had tongues.

One such long-tailed rabbit lived near a pond. He drank water from the pond and the grass nearby.

Now, in the pond lived a crocodile. The crocodile saw the rabbit eating grass and drinking water, and he thought how nice it would be to eat the rabbit.

One day the crocodile swam very close to the edge of the pond. He lay still in the water, hoping that the rabbit wouldn’t see him. When the rabbit came to drink

, the crocodile opened his mouth wide. Then he closed it with a snap. The rabbit was caught between the crocodile’s sharp teeth!

Of course, the rabbit was very frightened, but he did not want the crocodile to know this. “I’m not afraid of you,” said the rabbit. “I’m only afraid of animals that roar. Everyone knows that crocodiles can’t roar, so you can’t frighten me.

When the crocodile heard this, he became very angry. He wanted to show the rabbit that he could roar as fiercely as a tiger. And so, the crocodile opened his mouth to roar. When the crocodile opened his mouth, the clever rabbit jumped free. As he jumped, the rabbit’s sharp toe-nails caught the crocodile’s tongue and tore it out.

The crocodile tried to catch the rabbit again, but his great teeth only snapped off the end of the rabbit’s tail. Again and again the crocodile tried to catch the rabbit, but the rabbit was too quick for him. Sometimes the crocodile caught a piece of the rabbit’s tail, but he could never roar at the rabbit because he had lost his tongue.

That is why rabbit today have short tail, and crocodiles have no tongue.

The greedy monkeys story

A family of monkeys lived in a forest in south China. They often came out to play. They liked to drink wine and wear red shoes. A hunter knew they lived in the forest and wanted to catch them. The monkeys were very clever, they always ran away when they saw him coming.

One day, the monkeys were all playing together. Suddenly one of them thought he could smell some wine.

“Ai-yaah! What a lovely smell! Where is it coming from?” he cried.

The monkeys soon found that it was coming from a large jar at the side of the path. There were several pairs of red shoes also next to the jar. The leader of the monkeys said, “We must be careful. I’m sure the hunter is playing a trick on us.”

Another monkey asked, “Why should he place such beautiful shoes by the side of the jar?”

As he spoke, he scratched his foot which began to itch. Yet a third monkey advised them, “We have not so far been caught by the hunter because we have been careful.” The old monkey who was their leader said “You’re right.”

We must be very careful. We don’t want the hunter to catch us.

“stupid old hunter” he cried out loudly. “Do you really think you can catch us?”

All the other monkeys started to shout, “Silly old hunter! Stupid old hunter!” until their throats were quite dry. They all stood in a circle around the wine jar and red shoes. They did not know what to do. No one wanted to leave. Some of them licked their lips. Others scratched their feet.

“Can we taste just a little of the wine?” one of the monkeys asked.

Without saying any more, all the monkeys rushed towards the wine jar and opened it.

“Ai-yaah! What a marvelous smell! We’re really very lucky! What wonderful wine!”

At first the monkeys tasted the wine with their tongues only. Soon they started to swallow large quantities of it.

Some of them put on the red shoes and jumped and danced in them. Others who had drunk too much wine fell to the ground.

Suddenly there was a loud noise from the forest. It was the hunter.

Some of the monkeys tried to run away. But they could not do so because the shoes were tied together.

It was very easy for the hunter to catch them. He tied all of them up.

“we’re  really very unlucky.” One of the monkeys said.

Another monkey answered, “We can only blame ourselves. We were too greedy.”

The buffalo and the monkey

A monkey wanted to cross a river to eat some bananas on the other side. Unfortunately, he did not know how to swim. He asked a buffalo to carry him across on his back.

“All right,” said the buffalo. “Jump on. I’ll swim across. There’s some very tasty grass on the other side which I would like to eat.”

So the monkey rode on the buffalo’s back across the river. When they reached the other side, the monkey jumped off. He ran to eat as many banana as he could. The buffalo was quite happy eating the long grass.

After some time, the monkey wanted to return home. He asked the buffalo to take him back. But the buffalo told him to wait a little longer as he had not yet finished eating.

The naughty monkey began to sing. He made such a loud noise that a farmer, who was working in a nearby field, came to see what was the matter. He shouted at the buffalo, “Thief! Thief! Why are you eating my grass?” he threw some stones at the buffalo.

When the farmer had gone, the monkey came out from where he had been hiding. The buffalo was holding his sore head. He had been hit by a stone.

“Oh, oh! Why did you make so much noise? If you had kept quite, the farmer wouldn’t have noticed me.”

The monkey did not know what to say.

The buffalo asked him to sit on his back to return across the river.

When they were half-way across, the buffalo said to the monkey, “I want to roll over and take a bath here.”

“Please don’t! the monkey begged. “I can’t swim.”

“That’s not my fault.” Replied the buffalo. “You like to sing and make a noise. I always like to roll over in the water. It’s so cool and pleasant and it will cure my headache.”

Without saying any more, he rolled over in the water.

Luckily, the monkey was holding on tightly otherwise he would have drowned.

When they reached the other side, the monkey jumped down from the buffalo’s back. He was very wet and frightened.

“I shall never give you trouble again.” He promised. The buffalo.

The smartest parrot

Once upon time, a man had a wonderful parrot. There was no other parrot like it. The parrot could say every word, except one word. The parrot would not say the name of the place where it was born. The name of the place was Catano.

The man felt excited having the smartest parrot but he could not understand why the parrot would not say Catano. The man tried to teach the bird to say Catano, however the bird did not say the word.

At first, the man was very nice to the bird but then he got very angry. “You stupid bird!” pointed the man to the parrot. “Why can’t you say the word? Say Catano! Or I will kill you” the man said angrily. Although he tried hard to teach, the parrot would not say it. Then the man got so angry and shouted to the bird over and over; “Say Catano or I’ll kill you”. The bird kept not to say the word of Catano.

One day, after he had been trying so many times to make the bird say Catano, the man really got very angry. He could not bear it. He picked the parrot and threw it into the chicken house. There were four old chickens for next dinner “You are as stupid as the chickens. Just stay with them” Said the man angrily. Then he continued to humble; “You know, I will cut the chicken for my meal. Next it will be your turn, I will eat you too, stupid parrot”. After that he left the chicken house.

The next day, the man came back to the chicken house. He opened the door and was very surprised. He could not believe what he saw at the chicken house. There were three death chickens on the floor. At the moment, the parrot was standing proudly and screaming at the last old chicken; “Say Catano or I’ll kill you”.

The Cat and The Rat story

(Folktale from Japan)

Long ago, the God Heaven spoke to all of the animals in the world.

“Twelve animals will be chosen to protect the world. Each one will do this for a year at a time. Come to my palace on the twelfth day of the first moon. The first twelve animals to arrive will be chosen.

All of the animals waited excitedly for

the day. The Cat however  was very forgetful and could not remember which day it was. So she asked the Rat, “Which day do we go to the palace in Heaven to be chosen to protect the world?” The Rat wanted to be chosen so he said to the Cat, “On the thirteenth day of first moon, we will all go to the palace.”

The Rat lived in the stable of the Ox. One evening, he heard the Ox getting ready to leave for the palace. “Why are you leaving so early?” asked the Rat.

“Oh, my feet are so clumsy and slow.” Answered the Ox, “I must go now or I won’t  get there in time to be chosen.” As soon as the Ox turned to go, the Rat jumped into the bag on his back. The Ox did not know that he was carrying the Rat and he walked slowly through the night until he reached the palace. There were no other animals in front of him so he thought he must surely be the first. Just then, the Rat jumped out of the bag and ran to the gate.

“The very first is the Rat,” he called out to the Ox.

The Ox was very angry but not as angry as the Cat. She went to the palace on the thirteenth day as she had been told by the Rat. There was nobody about so she thought she must be the first. However, the guard called out to her.

“You are a day too late, Cat. The animals were chosen yesterday. First the Rat, then Ox, tiger. Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Cock, Dog and last of all, Bear. You shouldn’t be so sleepy, and look how dirty your face is! You shouldn’t was it better than you do. “With that he closed the gates.

Since then, the Cat has hated the Rat and has always tried to catch him. She also keeps washing her face with her tongue because the guard told her how dirty her face was.