Monthly Archives: June 2018

Peaches- a Folktale

“Aiyo! Ben dan over there! No one wants to buy fresh wood. You ain’t getting any money today!” jeered the other merchants. An lowered his head in shame, tugging his cloak tightly around his scrawny shoulders. As time passed, people began to return home. Realizing that it was another day without money, An packed his things up. As he was carrying his load with heavy footsteps back home he heard a cry.

“Aiyo! You, little boy over there!”

An turned around, startled. An old man came hobbling towards him.

An bowed his head respectfully. The old man said, “You look very sad… Money issues, isn’t it?”

An nodded.

“Well, what if I told you there is a chance for you to become as rich as the emperor?” the old man questioned.

An’s ears perked up at these words.

The old man continued, “There is a rumor that a peach garden is hidden near a beautiful palace owned by the goddess Queen Mother of the West, Xi Wangmu, herself. Once a mortal eats the nectar in the peach, he will instantly become immortal. Not only would you become immortal, you could also become the richest man on earth by selling those peaches!”

The old man tipped his straw hat and hobbled away, leaving. After that day, all day and all night, the old man’s words stuck in An’s head, constantly nagging him making his head throb and ache. Finally, he knew that he had to climb Kunlun Mountain no matter what.

So, off he set. The more he climbed, the more the mountain seemed to receed farther away from him and closer towards the sky instead. Minutes felt like hours, hours felt like days, and days felt like an eternity. An didn’t believe that his body could hold his weight much longer.

Panting heavily, he finally approached the last rock ahead of him. He clung on tightly and hoisted his weight up the cliff, causing all the energy he had left to drain out of him. What he saw there made him gasp in shock! Just as he had been told, the palace ahead of him was truly breathtaking. Surrounding it were towering cliffs of jade and emerald, and the palace itself was covered in exotic jewels. Monstrous trees with Phoenix- egg-like dangling peaches hovered over An’s head. An subconsciously found himself gulping, as streaks of saliva began to flow out of his mouth. He looked around cautiously and seeing no one, flung his bag over his shoulders, thrusted his hands on the tree trunk, and prepared to climb.

His gaze did not leave sight of the peaches. Thorns pricked his bare hands but the pain did not bother him one bit. He stretched his arms as far as he could reach, plucking the plump peaches one after another and putting them into his worn out bag.

Just then, An heard a shriek,

“You wanpi little boy! Ni zheng zai gan shen me? Come down this instant!”

An turned around with a jolt. In front of him was Xi Wangmu herself. Her eyes flared with flames of anger, sharp claws were visible on the tip of her fingers, and her skin was bright orange with black stripes. An lept out of the tree, wincing in pain as he crashed to the ground in a great plummet. He knelt down, not daring to look up at Xi Wangmu.

Inhaling deeply, he stammered,“Dear prepossessing, captivating, enthralling, exquisite…”

He was about to go on, but Xi Wangmu bluntly interrupted, “Bai tuo ni! Just get to the point and tell me why you are here holding my fruits!”

An summarized his whole life as quickly as he could and then bowed deeply, waiting for her response nervously.

“My dear boy,” Xi Wangmu said, lifting the boy’s chin so that his eyes made contact with hers. “Everyone makes mistakes once in awhile. You just have to learn from them.”

An’s eye bulged out in surprise. He quickly bowed before the Queen Mother and got up, clenching his teeth as he felt the pain in his ankle.

With that, the Queen Mother of West walked away.

An took a quick last look at the palace. The periwinkle sky was tinted with shades of pink and purple, and the palace coated with jewels glistened in the last rays of sunshine. He took a plump peach out of his bag, examining it. The thought of becoming immortal made him breathless with exhilaration. His teeth eagerly plunged deeply into the peach, as an explosion of sweet juice flooded his mouth. He swallowed and immediately examined his skin expecting to see a shiny glow appear, indicating that he had become immortal. Much to his dismay, his skin remained the same. Doubt and bewilderment filled his mind. He bit again but still nothing. He then recalled what Xi Wangmu had said, “Everyone makes mistakes once in awhile. You just have to learn from them.” He sighed deeply, realizing after all his effort, he had received nothing but a bag of peaches and an important lesson.

Even today, people enjoy the sweet, juicy peaches but the magic in them has vanished. It’s almost as if it never existed.

Glossary:

• Ben dan: idiotic, dumb, stupid.

• Hai zi: child.

• Wanpi: mischievous, silly.

• Aiyo: oh, used when someone is

  calling the other person.

• Bai tuo ni: please, but used in a sarcastic, annoyed tone.

• Ni zheng zai gan shen me: What are you doing right now?

—E. Choi, 12, U.S.-born Korean living in Hong Kong.

Seattle: The Cover Art

What is the color of Seattle? When you think of Seattle, you probably come up with several big-name corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing. You might think of dark Starbucks coffee, or the rain falling from the cloudy sky. So the color of Seattle might be achromatic like gray and black.

However, the color of Seattle is a multi-layer rainbow for me. The city is very diverse, composed of various people with different cultures, foods, languages, and spiritualities. All these people have tried to accept and mingle with each other to make the real Seattle. So, I think Seattle is a well-mixed hot pot with various people’s life stories.

I decided to use the dice to depict the city of Seattle because its skyscrapers always remind me of black dice. (If you line them up, they look like black buildings with white lights.) While I mainly used black dice for buildings, I used multiple colors of dice for the clouds and rain showers, representing new and multiple cultures.

As a Korean-American who has spent half of my life in Seattle, I would like to show the city as a culturally diverse place, like the life stories of its citizens. Also, I would like to share a little secret hidden in this artwork. You might observe the hidden word “Life” depicted by the dice, if you look carefully enough. 🙂

—Chankyo (Chris) Kim,16, Washington. He believes that art is an excellent tool for self-expression as well as communication with his community. He loves experimenting with diverse media to create various forms of visual arts: paintings, mixed media, animations, and political cartoons. When he is not working on his artwork, Chris avidly builds and programs with his robotics team, plays musical instruments, and practices Taekwondo. In addition to his artistic interests, he enjoys playing video games in his spare time while watching political, preferably unbiased, news. Below: Folkart from Central India.

About the Editor

Arun with his wife, Bidyut. Photo by Paul Dix.

Arun Narayan Toke’ is the founder and executive editor of Skipping Stones magazine.

Arun, born and raised in India, came to the United States to work on his graduate studies in engineering. He attended UWM, Notre Dame and UVM and worked as a design engineer in South Carolina and taught at a state college in Vermont before founding the multicultural magazine in Oregon. He has published two books, including a co-authored text-book: Energy, Economics and the Environment. His articles have appeared in several newspapers and magazines. Before publishing Skipping Stones, he was the editor and publisher of CookStove News at The Aprovecho Institute in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

As the editor of Skipping Stones for the last 36 years, Arun has attended numerous conferences and spoken at various venues. He is active in the local interfaith community for the last two decades. Arun was one of the founding members and a recent co-president of the Interfaith Prayer Services International (IPSI) based in Eugene, Oregon. IPSI offered twenty years of continuous monthly prayer services held on the 11th of each month in Eugene, Oregon, until 2022. Arun also helped organize the Eugene Multicultural Storytelling Festival for a number of years. He has previously served on the board of the Fellowship for Intentional Communities and also the National Association for Multicultural Education, NAME, as a Regional director.

Under Arun’s guidance, the annual Skipping Stones Honor Awards recognize both multicultural and nature writings by youth (ages 7 to 17), as well as many multicultural and nature books for all ages. During the past 28 years, the honor awards have recognized hundreds of outstanding books, and published countless exemplary writings—poems, stories, and essays—and art by youth.

Arun has traveled extensively in Europe, North America, Central America and Mexico as well as in his homeland of India. An avid nature lover, Arun has hiked and camped in dozens of national parks, climbed many peaks over 10,000 feet high in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central America. Arun has bicycled over 3,000 kilometers in Northern Europe and walked over 500 kilometers as a part of a peace walk in Central America. He speaks four languages, including Spanish. He tries to live by his multicultural, ecological and spiritual values.

Arun has been honored with the EDPRESS, NAME and the WRITER Awards. He was the 2011 recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Leadership Award of the City of Eugene. He has also served on the Human Rights Commission of the city of Eugene for one full term.

Read Seeing the World on a Bicycle, an article about Arun’s European travels and his reasons for starting Skipping Stones Magazine.

Children in Kota, Rajasthan (India). Photo by Arun Toké