Was Cinderella Chinese? A Story Told 1,200 Years Before Disney

Cinderella: an 1818 painting. Credit: Jean-Antoine Laurent / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

A Cinderella story with wide Chinese roots was connected grounds astir 1,200 years earlier Disney turned the communicative into a movie classic. In a survey published successful Oral Tradition, Fay Beauchamp argued that the communicative known successful the West whitethorn hint 1 of its earliest afloat versions to ninth-century China, wherever a young heroine named Ye Xian appeared successful penning centuries earlier Europe’s best-known tellings.

Beauchamp, who was a prof of English astatine the Community College of Philadelphia astatine the clip of publication, focused connected a substance recorded astir 850 CE by Tang Dynasty writer Duan Chengshi.

The communicative of Ye Xian includes striking details that readers present link with Cinderella: She is mistreated aft her parents die. She is forced to unrecorded nether a cruel stepmother. She receives assistance aft losing hope. She goes to a festival successful good clothes. She loses a shoe. A king aboriginal finds her done that footwear and marries her.

Chinese Cinderella communicative mattered agelong earlier Disney

Beauchamp said those parallels are excessively adjacent to ignore. But she did not dainty the Chinese communicative arsenic a elemental transcript of the aboriginal European versions. Instead, she argued that Ye Xian should beryllium recognized successful her ain Asian setting.

Cinderella astatine the Kitchen Fire by Thomas Sully. Credit: Thomas Sully / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Her probe points to Guangxi successful confederate China, adjacent today’s borderline with Vietnam. Beauchamp argued that the communicative apt reflected the satellite of the Zhuang people, an taste radical rooted successful that region. She linked the tale’s details to Zhuang life, including section dress, embroidery, shoes, festivals, and beliefs astir ancestors and spirits.

She besides argued that the communicative was shaped by wider Asian influences. Trade routes successful the Tang play connected South, Southeast, and East Asia. Along those routes, stories and spiritual ideas moved with goods and travelers.

Guangxi and the Zhuang satellite down Ye Xian

Beauchamp said parts of Ye Xian’s communicative echo older Hindu and Buddhist narratives, particularly stories involving rescue, motivation reward, and supernatural help.

At the aforesaid time, she said the grounds does not enactment the thought that the communicative arrived successful China arsenic a finished import. In her view, it took signifier successful that confederate borderline portion done section storytelling and interaction with different Asian traditions.

One item stood retired successful her study: the fish. Ye Xian saves and cares for a peculiar fish, which aboriginal becomes cardinal to her fate. Beauchamp argued that this representation whitethorn bespeak the existent value of food civilization successful Guangxi, wherever raising carp could bring nutrient and security. She saw that item arsenic 1 of the clearest signs that the communicative was grounded successful section life.

The larger constituent of the survey was not conscionable that a Chinese communicative came earlier Disney. Beauchamp argued that Ye Xian should nary longer beryllium treated arsenic a broadside enactment successful Cinderella history. She said the communicative deserves designation arsenic a large aboriginal mentation of the tale, shaped by Asian civilization and preserved agelong earlier the Western versions became famous.