Tam and Cam

Tam and Cam: Vietnamese folktaleAs we have commented before, there are hundreds of folktales around the world that have the same central plot as the famous children’s story Cinderella. This Vietnamese version is longer and continues after the protagonist becomes Queen. The story from here on could only happen in a folktale from a country where people believe that after we die we can be born again in non-human form. The poor girl is killed twice after marrying the king, each time coming back to life in a different form. Fortunately, goodness wins out and the evil stepsister soon finds herself in hot water.

General Comments

This story illustrates a possible difference between modern day, Christian influenced Western fairy tales and the original stories upon which they are based. In the version of Tam and Cam that we have simplified here the story ends with the comment:

“Tam lived longer than both of them (her stepmother and stepsister), and lived happily ever after, for she certainly deserved it.”

In Western terms it is hard to see how it could be argued that Tam was so good as be worthy of life-long happiness. At the end of the story she caused her stepsister Cam to be boiled alive. Another version of the story has an even more horrible ending where Tam had Cam’s body cut up, cooked and turned into a sauce which she tricked her stepmother into eating with her meals. The sauce was so delicious that the stepmother ate it every day until she found Cam’s head at the bottom of the jar and immediately fell down dead. If we were able to look back at original versions of many English children’s favorites, we would find examples of equally bad things happening to those who do wrong.

There is some disagreement about the best moral for the the original Cinderella story, which makes up the first part of the Tam and Cam plot. The version that made Cinderella famous was contained in Charles Perrault’s Stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals (also known as Tales of Mother Goose), first published in 1697. Perrault gave two possible morals for the story:

Beauty in a woman is a rare treasure that will always be admired. Graciousness, however, is priceless and of even greater value. This is what Cinderella’s godmother gave to her when she taught her to behave like a queen. Young women, in the winning of a heart, graciousness is more important than a beautiful hairdo. It is a true gift of the fairies. Without it nothing is possible; with it, one can do anything.

and

Without doubt it is a great advantage to have intelligence, courage, good breeding, and common sense. These, and similar talents come only from heaven, and it is good to have them. However, even these may fail to bring you success, without the blessing of a godfather or a godmother.

These can best be paraphrased as follows: 1) It is nice to beautiful, but unless you are also gracious (caring, courteous, and kind) it won’t bring you everything you want; 2) Sometimes, even with all of these things, you may still need a little luck in order to succeed.

There is some interesting symbolism in Tam and Cam which could explain a possible additional moral for this version. Near the beginning of the story we see this description:

“The poor little Tam worked and worked all day. Her skin became dark and her hair messy. Sometimes when she went to get water, she looked at herself in it and was surprised to see how dark and ugly she was. She would then take up some water in her hand, wash her face and comb her long straight hair with her fingers. The soft white skin appeared again, and she looked pretty again. But when the stepmother saw how pretty Tam could look, she hated her more than ever and wished to make her life worse.”

And then at the end of the story Tam’s stepsister Cam asks her:

“Dearest sister, how could I become as white as you?”

As well as the obvious thought that Tam’s light skin and Cam’s dark skin may represent good and evil, skin color could have a uniquely Asian symbolism here. In Asia there is a popular stereotype that dark-skinned people are of a lower social standing than light-skinned people. This seems to come from the idea that the family of dark-skinned people must be poor and uneducated and therefore have to earn a living by working in the sun. Because of this, one of the biggest selling personal care products in that part of the world is skin-whitening cream. In the West the opposite applies; many people like to have a “healthy” browning of the skin to show that they have the time and money to relax outdoors. Cam’s terrible end may not have come from all the bad things she did, but from wanting to change the color of her skin.

The possible additional moral? “Be happy with who you are and don’t try to change it.” This seems a very important teaching for a strongly class based society such as ancient Asia, where the last thing those in power would have wanted was for the masses to try to improve their position.

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