Name: _________________________________ Course/Yr/Section:_____________ Score:_____

Course Code: GE 121 Course Title: Great Books

Lesson 8: Eastern Literature (Asian & Far Eastern): The Soul of the Great Bell by Lafcadio Hearn

Introduction
In this topic, you will find the full summary of a Chinese folktale named The Soul of the Great Bell. This
tale was retold by an American journalist named Lafcadio Hearn, who has a keen interest in the oriental culture
which made him write English versions of Chinese and Japanese folktales.

As you read the full story, try to reflect on the things you have sacrificed or are willing to sacrifice for the
sake of your loved ones. Are you brave enough like Ko- Ngai to risk your own life for the love of family?

Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. differentiate the appearance and characteristics of the bell;
2. compare and contrast Filipino and Chinese values and traditions; and
3. discuss own experience similar to the story.

LESSON PROPER

THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL (Summary)

About 500 years ago, the Celestial August and Yung-Lo ordered his bellsmiths and molders to make a
bell that makes a sound that reaches 100 Li.

This was spearheaded by Kouan-Yu. They attempted to cast a bell twice, however, gold, silver, brass,
iron wouldn’t meld together.

When Celestial August knew about it, he was furious yet he spoke nothing. The second time he heard
of the issue, he warned Kouan-Yu that if they wouldn’t successfully cast the bell, he would be condemned to
death.

Kouan-Yu has a daughter named Ko-Ngal. She is exquisite but her heart is much more beautiful than
her face.

She found the letter, read it, and kept it a secret. She sold her jewelries and gold to pay an astrologer
she needs to consult for an advice. 

The astrologer told her that gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never will
embrace until the flesh of a maiden is melted in the crucible and the blood of a virgin is mixed in the metal
fusion. 

In the third attempt, Ko-Ngal leapt in the crucible. Kouan-Yu was in sorrow and could not do anything
about it. They finished the bell with success.

As they rang the bell, it made a sound that is deeper, mellower and mightier than any other bell.

ASSESSMENT
Directions: On a separate sheet of paper, answer directly the following questions.
1. After reading the full story, have you noticed the descriptions of the bell? Fill out the bell’s description
on the corresponding columns and answer the questions that follow.
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Description of the Bell

Before Ko-Ngai leaped to the furnace After Ko-Ngai leaped to the furnace

(Indicate paragraph number where you found (Indicate paragraph number where you found
your answers) your answers)

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2. What other traditions involve bells? Compare and contrast these traditions with Filipino traditions.
3. Do Filipinos and Chinese have similar values? What makes you think so?
4. Similar to Ko-Ngai, what sacrifices have you done for your family?

Suggested Reading:
Please visit the link below for the full text of the story.

(1) https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Hearn_Great_Bell.pdf

Lesson 9: Eastern Literature (African): The Dead Men’s Path by Chinua Achebe

Introduction
New ideas are the lifeblood of human cultural and academic evolution. It is the human’s ability to reflect
and answer questions of the betterment of daily life that is responsible for the great achievements of mankind.
Our ability to create new ways of doing everyday tasks lead to inventions like the car, to make transportation
more efficient, or regular everyday machinery that makes difficult chores safer and easier. Dreams come true
with new ideas as well. 
History as shown since written account of people have been recorded that man has always dreamed of
being able to be like birds and fly. Now flight is a normal thing for humans because of airplanes. At what point
though do we draw a line with change and contemporary improvements and remember tradition? If we
constantly

look forward can we truly learn from our past mistakes? Tradition teaches us to remember what works and to
remember what is important. When tradition is lost self-identity is also lost. Respect for certain virtues and
ideals can be found in tradition. So what happens when we lose sight of that? Find out the answer to this
question as you read the full text of the story below.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. explain the importance of the path to the villagers;
2. describe the main character of the story;
3. describe a conflict in your personal life; and
4. write a journal entry.

LESSON PROPER
The Dead Men’s Path (Detailed Summary)

In 1949, the young Michael Obi is appointed headmaster of the unprogressive school, Ndume Central
School, by the Mission authorities (a colonial religious body). A “young and energetic man” with lots of big
ideas for the school, Obi happily accepts the offer.

Michael Obi and his wife, Nancy, immediately get to work making the school into a place where
“modern” ideas will be practiced. They are passionate about this project and they scorn anyone and any idea
that they feel does not adhere to their progressive values, including scorning older educators. Excited by the
prospect of the school and reverent of her husband’s ideas, Nancy begins to think of herself as “the queen of
the school” who will be deeply envied and admired by the other teachers’ wives. However, she is crushed
when Obi tells her that the other teachers don’t have wives. She recovers from her disappointment, though,
because “[h]er little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband’s happy prospects.”

Nancy studies her husband. Although Obi is “stoop-shouldered” and looks weak, he is known for his
“sudden bursts of physical energy.” He also looks fairly old—he’s twenty-six, but looks to be at least thirty
years old. Obi tells his wife that he’s excited about his chance to run the school because it will allow him “to
show these people how a school should be run.”

At the school, Obi and Nancy emphasize a “high standard of teaching” and work together to make the
school grounds beautiful with the rich and carefully-tended gardens of Nancy’s dreams. The flowering hedges
of the gardens eventually demarcate the school compound from the nearby village, which is outlined by “rank”
shrubs.
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One day, Obi sees an old woman cross the school compound, wander through the gardens, and walk
down an “almost disused path.” Obi becomes angry and confronts a teacher about the path’s use. The teacher,
“apologetically,” explains the path’s cultural importance: how it links the village shrine to the villagers’ “place of
burial.” Obi challenges him by asking about the path’s usefulness to the school, but the teacher responds by
warning Obi of the “big row” that occurred when others attempted to close the path a while ago. Obi,
nonetheless, is scandalized by the thought of the Government Education Officer witnessing signs of the “pagan
ritual” during his inspection in a week’s time. Thus, Obi promptly shuts the path with a fence, prohibiting its use.

The village priest, an elderly man who “walk[s] with a slight stoop,” visits Obi a few days after the path’s
closing. He attempts to get Obi to change his mind and recognize and respect the deep significance the path
has in the community, their lives, and their identity as people now and for generations to come: “Our dead
relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to
be born…”

With a “satisfied smile,” Obi refuses the old village priest’s request and declares that he would like to
not just eliminate such pagan ideas and traditions from the students at his school, but also encourage the
students to actively ridicule them. Preparing to leave, the priest says that they must “let the hawk perch and let
the eagle perch.” Obi reiterates that allowing the villagers to use the school path is “against our regulations,”
but he suggests that the village make another path outside of school grounds, claiming that the ancestors
won’t “find the little detour too burdensome.” Speechless, the old priest leaves.

A woman in the village dies two days later while giving birth. A diviner is called, and he prescribes that
the village complete “heavy sacrifices” to satisfy the ancestors, who, he suggests, let the woman die because
they were insulted by the prohibitions on their path.

Obi wakes up the next morning and sees the school in shambles: the gardens, the hedges of the
school, and even a school building have been destroyed.

Shortly afterwards, a white government Supervisor arrives to inspect the school. He pens a “nasty

report” about Obi, the dilapidated school grounds, and the “tribal-war situation” that Obi had unwittingly started
because of his “misguided zeal.”

Assessment
Direction: On separate sheets of paper, directly answer the following.
1.  What does the path mean to the villagers?
2. Is Obi willing to learn from others? What adjectives describe him?
3. One way that the destruction of the school property might have been avoided is if the priest and Obi
had compromised. Describe a conflict in your personal life, in government, in fiction, or in the movies.
Tell what each side wanted and explain how the conflict was resolved.
4. Imagine you are Michael Obi. Write a journal entry after the Supervisor's report, explaining what you
have learned about yourself and the village.

Suggested Reading:
Please visit the link below for the full story:

(1) https://www.sabanciuniv.edu/HaberlerDuyurular/Documents/F_Courses_/2012/Dead_Mens_Path.pdf

Lesson 10: Eastern Literature (African): Selected Tribal Short Stories and Fables

Introduction
Africans, like people elsewhere in the world, have a set of values which they consider worthwhile and
necessary for the preservation and wellbeing of their culture.
In many African societies, an important aspect of traditional education is concerned with teaching oral
literature using folktales, riddles and proverbs which aim at molding character and providing children with moral
values like honesty, integrity, courage and solidarity.

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Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
1. discuss the moral lessons of the story;
2. explain the human traits reflected on one of the characters; and
3. compare and contrast the importance of folktales between African and Filipino culture.

LESSON PROPER
The Dance for Water or Rabbit’s Triumph (Full Story)

There was a frightful drought. The rivers after a while dried up and even the springs gave no water.
The animals wandered around seeking drink, but to no avail. Nowhere was water to be found.
A great gathering of animals was held: Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Jackal, Elephant, all of them came together. What
was to be done? That was the question. One had this plan, and another
had that; but no plan seemed of value.
Finally one of them suggested: “Come, let all of us go to the dry river
bed and dance; in that way we can tread out the water.”
Good! Everyone was satisfied and ready to begin instantly, excepting
Rabbit, who said, “I will not go and dance. All of you are mad to attempt
to get water from the ground by dancing.”

The other animals danced and danced, and ultimately danced the water to the surface. How glad they were.
Everyone drank as much as he could, but Rabbit did not dance with them. So it was decided that Rabbit
should have no water.
He laughed at them: “I will nevertheless drink some of your water.”
That evening he proceeded leisurely to the river bed where the dance had been, and drank as much as he
wanted. The following morning the animals saw the footprints of Rabbit in the ground, and Rabbit shouted to
them: “Aha! I did have some of the water, and it was most refreshing and tasted fine.”
Quickly all the animals were called together. What were they to do? How were they to get Rabbit in their
hands? All had some means to propose; the one suggested this, and the other that.
Finally old Tortoise moved slowly forward, foot by foot: “I will catch Rabbit.”   
“You? How? What do you think of yourself?” shouted the others in unison.
“Rub my shell with pitch,  and I will go to the edge of the water and lie down. I will then resemble a stone, so
that when Rabbit steps on me his feet will stick fast.”
“Yes! Yes! That’s good.”
And in a one, two, three, Tortoise’s shell was covered with pitch, and foot by foot he moved away to the river.
At the edge, close to the water, he lay down and drew his head into his shell.
Rabbit during the evening came to get a drink. “Ha!” he chuckled sarcastically, “they are, after all, quite decent.
Here they have placed a stone, so now I need not unnecessarily wet my feet.”
Rabbit trod with his left foot on the stone, and there it stuck. Tortoise then put his head out. “Ha! old Tortoise!
And it’s you, is it, that’s holding me. But here I still have another foot. I’ll give you a good clout.” Rabbit gave
Tortoise what he said he would with his right fore foot, hard and straight; and there his foot remained.
“I have yet a hind foot, and with it I’ll kick you.” Rabbit drove his hind foot down. This also rested on Tortoise
where it struck.
“But still another foot remains, and now I’ll tread you.” He stamped
his foot down, but it stuck like the others.
He used his head to hammer Tortoise, and his tail as a whip, but
both met the same fate as his feet, so there he was tight and fast
down to the pitch.
Tortoise now slowly turned himself round and foot by foot started for
the other animals, with Rabbit on his back.
“Ha! ha! ha! Rabbit! How does it look now? Insolence does not pay
after all,” shouted the animals.
Now advice was sought. What should they do with Rabbit? He certainly must die. But how? One said, “Behead
him”; another, “Some severe penalty.”
“Rabbit, how are we to kill you?”
“It does not affect me,” Rabbit said. “Only a shameful death please do not pronounce.”
“And what is that?” they all shouted.

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“To take me by my tail and dash my head against a stone; that I pray and beseech you don’t do.”
“No, but just so you’ll die. That is decided.”
It was decided Rabbit should die by taking him by his tail and dashing his head to pieces against some stone.
But who is to do it?
Lion, because he is the most powerful one.
Good! Lion should do it. He stood up, walked to the front, and poor Rabbit was brought to him. Rabbit pleaded
and beseeched that he couldn’t die such a miserable death.
Lion took Rabbit firmly by the tail and swung him around. The white skin slipped off from Rabbit, and there Lion
stood with the white bit of skin and hair in his paw. Rabbit was free.

Assessment
Direction: On a separate sheet of paper, answer the following.
1. Discuss the moral lessons you learned from the tale.
2. What human traits are reflected on the character of rabbit in the story? Explain you answer. Include the
paragraph where your answer is reflected.
3. Compare and contrast the importance of folktales between African and Filipino culture.

Lesson 11: Eastern Literature (Arabic): The Bewildered Arab by Jami

Introduction
Confusion is the lack of clarity or rather a state of bewilderment or puzzlement. Sometimes, we find
ourselves in a constant state of shock from the moment we wake up to the time we retire to bed at the day’s
end. Any undertaking that we engage in requires a thought process.
Most people do not admit that they are confused because it will be seen as a sign of weakness. It is by
the fact that we are unaware that we are challenged to find the missing pieces.

Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
1. discuss your own interpretation of the poem; and
2. explain a real-life scenario similar to the poem.

LESSON PROPER

THE BEWILDERED ARAB

From the solitary desert

Up to Baghdad cam a simple Arab;
There amid the rout
Grew bewildered of the countless
People, hither, thither, running,
Coming going, meeting, parting.
Clamor, clatter, and confusion,
All about him and about.

Travel-wearied , hubbub-dizzy,
Would the simple Arab fain
Get to sleep-Bur then, on waking,
"How",quoth he," amid so many
Walking, know myself again?

So, to make the matter certain,

Strung a gourd about his ankle,
And into a corner creeping,
Baghdad and himself and people

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Soon were blotted from his brain.

But one that heard him and divined

His purpose slyly crept behind.
From the sleeper's ankle clinging,
Round his own the pumpkin tied
And laid him down to sleep beside.

By and by the Arab, waking,

Looks directly for his signal
Sees it on another's ankle
Cries aloud, "Oh, good-for-nothing
Rascal to perplex me so!
That by you I am bewildered,
Whether I be or I be no!
If I the pumpkin why on you?
If you then where am I, and who?''

Assessment
Direction: On separate sheets of paper, answer the following.
1. Discuss your own interpretation of the poem.
2. What does the bewildered Arab remind you of your first trip to a strange place like a busy city?
3. Explain a real-life scenario which you consider yourself bewildered similar to the man in the poem.
Explain how you have approached resolving that confusion.

Suggested Reading:
Please visit the link below for better understanding of the lesson.

(1) http://myenglishpoet.blogspot.com

Lesson 12: Eastern Literature (Asian & Far Eastern): Selected Poetry & Stories by Asian Authors

Introduction

Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
1. explain the family tradition presented in the story;
2. explain the title of the story; and
3. create a short reflection.

LESSON PROPER
Shimenawa (Japanese Story) by Naoko Kumagai

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Uncle Kazuya, my father’s older brother, hung himself in the barn behind his house in Ishikari, just outside
Sapporo in Hokkaido.
 He had left a note:
I’m found out. It’s too late. Help.
“He went door to door and bribed people so they’d vote for him,” my mother said. “He was running for city
council. He was an idiot.”  
“Your grandma’s pretty upset,” was all my father could say. She had called us with the news that early
Tuesday morning, September 1988.
My 14-year-old self tried to detect sadness, anger, anything in my father’s expression. He rustled the
Vancouver Sun he was reading and held the broadsheet up to his face like a shield. I was at the foot of the
long dining table; he was at the head. We were remote satellites temporarily at rest. He didn’t go to the
funeral.   
 
***
It was the beginning of a lesson for me. Death doesn’t necessarily bring people together; it can lift the veil and
reveal how far apart you are. If my father ever cried as much as he needed to, I imagine he would flood every
creek, every river vein, until the waters would rise into swirling pools. He would have to be compelled by some
extraordinary force to soften him, crack him open and invite the grief in.
 
***
 

As the eldest son, Kazuya was expected to stay in the house in Ishikari where he’d been born. He and Aunt
Yuko brought up their two boys on the farm. I had met my uncle only once during a visit to Ishikari when I was
ten, a hazy recollection, aside from his booming voice. I pieced the rest of him together from hearing
fragmented anecdotes and muted conversations between my parents. Kazuya was full of life, a man to be
feared. He was generous, oppressive, a thief (he stole land that belonged to my father), a bully, a giant. He
contained my shifting preoccupations with Japan, the country where I was born but didn’t know. He was a
thread to slippery, remote family clues. My parents had told me very little. They were born in Japan at the end
of the Second World War; they grew up poor. Married, immigrated, Canada. They moved through life like the
walking embalmed. They held the war in the marrow of their soft child bones.
My father drank himself numb and did his best to follow his father’s credo: “A real man only speaks three words
a day.”
 
At the end, his brother broke the family rules. I’m found out. It’s too late. Help. He would never have
expressed such a cacophony when he was alive. It was too many words.
***
 After hearing of Kazuya’s suicide, I contemplated rope in all its variations. My old skipping rope with wood
handles, the tent rope in the garage, the multi-purpose yellow plastic twine in my father’s workroom that didn’t
seem to have a purpose. A rubber hose in the grass, the trailing line of an extension cord, the white TV cable
with metal ends. I conjured up heavy loops of rope lying on the ground in my
uncle’s barn, like columns of sinister, sleeping vipers.
 
***
In July 1989, eleven months after Kazuya’s suicide, our family visited my
grandmother and Aunt Yuko in Ishikari. Grandma was a tiny, fierce woman,
who was bowlegged and rocked side-to-side like a metronome as she walked.
She often sat in her corner in the living room, on a fat cushion on her knees.
One afternoon, I was sitting on the floor across from her. Her eyes were closed.
For a moment, I thought she might be sleeping upright. Then she was
speaking.
“Do you eat sushi in Canada?” she asked me, opening her eyes.
I was fifteen and could speak some Japanese. She didn’t know a word of English.
“Yes. There’s lots of it everywhere,” I replied.
“It would be nice if you married a Japanese boy someday,” she said.
“They don’t exist in Canada,” I said.
 She made a “hmmmm” sound and nodded.
“It’s sad,” she said. “That’s very sad. It would be nice if you could.”
Her gaze wandered away and did not return to me.
“I don’t know why he did it,” she said, her voice breaking.
 
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***
I had heard that corruption was common in Japanese politics in Hokkaido; it was so common that people didn’t
particularly seem to be outraged by it. Some were often more angered when their favourite politician was
arrested for bribery, than by the corruption itself.  My uncle had been a popular councilman in his community.
He probably could have gone on, unscathed, been forgiven, if forgiveness was even necessary.
 So why did he do it?
“You must commit suicide at the height of your beauty.” This was something the Japanese writer Yukio
Mishima believed when he committed seppuku in a government office at the age of 45 in 1970. Kazuya had
been 52 when he died. Did he believe he was past his beauty? Was his suicide in part, an act of vanity?  Had
he been terrified of getting old?
In the Shinto religion, twists of sacred rice straw rope called shimenawa are used to symbolize ritual
purification and to ward off evil spirits. The shimenawa is hung over the doors of temples, homes or building
sites after they have been purified. The rope is also used to encircle objects that are considered holy, such as
trees or rocks. Kazuya had used a piece of rice straw rope to end his life. He was not a religious person. But
was his death in some way an attempt at purification?
Through the years, I would turn the possibilities over and over again in my mind. It occurred to me much later
that it was a way for me to keep him alive.
 
***
This is a story I was told.
 It was August 1973. My brother Jiro was four, sitting at dinner.

“E tadaki mas,” my uncle said. Jiro picked up onigiri, a rice ball, with his hands and mashed it into his mouth.
Fish and rice on his plate, untouched. He stuffed another onigiri in his mouth, bits of rice falling.
“Jiro-chan…” A warning from my mother.  Jiro opened his mouth wide, splayed his tongue covered in tiny white
beads of rice. Kazuya stood up and roughly pulled Jiro out of his chair.
“What are you doing?” My mother asked, getting up.
Kazuya went out the back door, carrying Jiro firmly under his arm. With the other hand, he picked up a circle of
rope hanging on the fence by the shed. In the yard was a large oak tree with heavy, twisted branches. He
wrapped the rope around my brother once, then pushed him to the trunk of the oak, winding the rope around
and around.
 “He must eat his dinner properly.” My uncle tied a thick knot at the end. “He needs to learn to be a man.”  
My mother was shouting at my uncle; Jiro was screaming, the sound flooding the sky. Kazuya went back into
the house, relaxed and entitled, as if he had just finished a long day’s work.
 No one remembers the rest. My mother never forgave my uncle. My father wasn’t there. Jiro can’t recall any of
it. He jokes that the incident is possibly the reason he always, intuitively eats everything on his plate.
I invent my own ending. I imagine my mother struggling with the knot, with Jiro sobbing to be free. A kodama, a
tree spirit, in the form of an old woman, appears. She unties Jiro, embraces his small body, presses her palm
over his forehead as if to calm a fever. She banishes the event from his mind. Early next morning, Jiro peers
out the window. A shimenawa with paper streamers is tied around the base of the oak.
***
When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I was living in Toronto. I called my parents in Vancouver. 
My father picked up the phone. He usually passed the receiver to my mother once he’d said hello because he
hated talking on the phone, but this time, he was watching the news, the endless looping footage of the
destruction, the lineups for food and water and the brown water surging over houses and cars.
“Japan will disappear,” he said. “It’s going to disappear soon.”
He sounded like a child then, speaking in a voice I had never heard. He was trying to reach relatives in Tokyo
and couldn’t get through. Something in my father’s tone indicated an opening, a chance to compensate for a
lifetime of missed conversations. We could start with my uncle.
But I hesitated. I was too afraid to take the risk, to be evaded, dismissed. I told my father I’d call back later. I
hung up the phone and left the tangled cord spiraling from the edge of the desk.

Assessment
Direction: On separate sheets of paper, answer the following.
1. Asia is known for having a closed family ties. Was the family in the story practicing it?
2. Why is the story entitled Shimenawa? Explain in your own understanding.
3. In the story, Jiro was not eating properly, so Kazuya stood up and roughly pulled Jiro. Write what
Kazuya did to Jiro.
4. Create a short reflection about the things you have realized as you read the story.
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Prepared by:
CHARIE MAE D. GAGAP
Fulltime Lecturer
Verified:
CENBY EPPIE G. GAYTOS, Ph.D.
Head, BEED Program

MANUELA P. SISON, Ph.D.

Head, BSED Program

MARY GRACE JUNE B. GAGATIGA

Head, BS Info Tech

Approved by:
ALVIN B. LACABA, Ed.D.
Dean, College of Education

ENGR. AIDA F. ELIVERA

Dean, College of Computer Science

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