Question

[Trần Nữ Diễm Hương]

Write about your story of Tam and Cam

Answer 1

[Đỗ Kiến Trương]

x bằng 12 nha bạn

Answer 2

[Tác giả đào hoa]

The story is about two half-sisters; the eldest is named Tấm (rice germ) and the youngest is named Cám (rice bran).^[1] Tấm's mother dies early and her father remarries before dying soon after. Tấm lives with her stepmother, who is Cám's mother. The stepmother is very sadis and makes Tấm do all the housework, whereas Cám does not have to do anything.^[1]

One day, the stepmother tells Tấm and Cám to go to the field to catch "tép" (caridina, a tropical genus of shrimp) and promises to give them a new red yếm (a Vietnamese traditional bodice) to whomever catches the most.^[1] Tấm soon fills up her basket, while Cám plays in the water and catches nothing. Realizing that her sister actually had a chance at receiving a red yếm and the day is almost done, Cám comes up with a plan to sabotage Tấm's work. Cám tells her older sister to wash her hair, saying that the stepmother will scold her if her hair is so muddy after catching all the tép, and Tấm obeyed. While Tấm is washing her hair, Cám transfers all the shrimp from Tấm's basket to hers and goes home.^[1]

When Tấm realizes that all the shrimp she has caught is gone, she cries in seeing all her hard work disappear and the impending punishment that will come from her stepmother. A Bụt (a wise old man who helps pitiful people in Vietnamese folklore, sometimes considered a tiên) appears and asks why she cries, and she tells him what happened. He tells her to stop crying and see what is left in the basket, which is merely a goby. Then he tells her to raise the fish in a well with her rice and teach her the words to call the fish up:

O goby, o goby

Go up and eat my golden and silver rice

Don't eat those spoiled rice and porridge of theirs.

(Original:

Bống bống bang bang

Lên ăn cơm vàng cơm bạc nhà ta

Chớ ăn cơm hẩm cháo hoa nhà người.)^[1]

Without the exact recitement, the goby would not rise, according to what the old man has said before he vanishes. Tấm follows his counsel, and the goby grows noeably. Tấm would spend her time talking to the goby about her thoughts, which the fish would silently comfort her. Suspicious about her behavior, the stepmother and the half-sister discover the fish as well as the poem by which Tấm summons it. The stepmother plans to distance Tấm in order to kill the fish:

My daughter, the village has prohibited using the field; tomorrow you should graze our buffaloes far away, or they shall seize them.

The stepmother also tells Tấm to leave her coat behind. Tấm obeys her stepmother, unaware of her intent. The stepmother had Cám wear Tấm's clothes and recite the line- making the goby mistaken her as Tấm, which allows them to butcher the goby.

After coming back home, Tấm calls the goby up as usual, but nothing goes up but blood. She sobs again and the old man appears again. He asks why she cries and she explains. He replies: "Your goby they have eaten. Cry no more! Collect its bones, put them in four jars and bury them under your bed legs." and she does so.

Soon after, the king hosts a festival, which he invites people from everywhere to attend, including Tấm and her family. Noing that Tấm also want to join, the stepmother mixes up rice and bran that she has to separate them before joining the festival, and threatens to punish her if she does not have it done by the time they back from the festival. Again she cries, the old man appears and she explains what happened. He calls sparrows down to help her and teach her a poem to prevent them from eating bran and rice:

O sparrows, go down and separate these for me

Eat a grain, and I will beat you to dead

(Original:

Rặt rặt xuống nhặt cho tao

Ăn mất hạt nào thì tao đánh chết)

The old man then tells her to dig up those jars that she has buried previously. In the first two jars appear silk clothes, a scarf, and a red yếm. The third jar contains a tiny horse which enlarges into a normal horse; the fourth has a saddle for the horse.

Happily, Tấm washes up and wears the clothing before rushing to the festival in the capital. Crossing a stone bridge, she drops a slipper and cannot get it back.^[2] When the king crosses the same bridge, the elephant on which the king rides suddenly growls and brushes its ivory down to the earth. Curiously, the king commands his mans to looking underwater, and they find the slipper. He observes the slipper for a while and comments that the shoe must belong to a gracious woman. Saying so, he tells all the women in the festival to try the slipper to find out the owner, whom he shall wed. No one fits the shoe. Tấm arrives, excited about the festivities and noes her slipper on display. She approaches to try it on. Seeing Tấm trying it on, Cám and her mother mock her. The slipper turns out to fit her, and she draws the other one to wear. The king commands his people to lead her to his palace to wed her. Tấm goes with the king in front of Cám's and her mother's envious eyes.

Tấm's reincarnations[edit]

Tấm and the king are happily married. Not forgetting her father's death day, despite the fulfilling life in the king's palace, she comes back home to help her stepmother prepare for the anniversary.

All the hatred the stepmother and Cám have towards Tấm rises again, but they kept their thoughts private. Despite their harsh treatment towards her before she was married, Tấm treated them kindly during the anniversary.

The stepmother tells Tấm to climb on an areca tree to gather its fruit for the ceremony. While Tấm is doing so, the stepmother chops down the tree, leaving her fall down and die.

The stepmother takes Tấm's clothes for Cám to wear. Cám goes to the king's palace and lies to him that Tấm was unfortunately drowned in a pond by accident. Cám states she came to the palace to replace her sister's position as his wife.^[2] The king is saddened to hear so, yet there is nothing he can do, and so he marries Cám. He ignores his new wife, mourning for Tấm silently, to the other's dismay.

Tấm reincarnates into an oriole. She flies straight to the king. On her way, she scolds Cám for not properly washing the king's clothes. Eventually, Tấm sees the king, and she sings to him.

Missing his wife, the king says: "O oriole, if you are my wife, enter my sleeve", and she does so. The king immediately believes that she has being reincarnated as the bird and only spends his time with it, ignoring Cám even more. He then builds a cage for Tấm to reside in when they are not together.

Following her mother's counsel, Cám butchers the oriole, eats it, and then buries its feather in the royal garden. She lies to the king that she was not aware of the interaction between him and the bird, and the oriole simply fled away when she tried to feed it.

From where the feathers were buried grow two peach trees. The trees bend itself to shade for the king. Noing the two trees that somehow appeared in the royal garden, the king believes they are also a sign from Tấm.

The king tells his people to bring a cot so he can nap there every day. Cám chops the trees down and tells the king she did so to weave new clothes for him.^[2] While weaving the clothes, she hears Tấm accusing her for stealing her husband, cursing her and threatening to "hack her eyes". She then burns the loom and throw the ash far away from the palace. The wind carries the ashes far away before they eventually land. From the ash grows a golden apple tree.

A crone soon crosses by the tree and is ened by the scent of its only fruit. The old woman says:

O golden apple, fall to my sack

Your scent I'll smell, eat you I'll not

(Original: "Thị ơi thị à, rụng vào bị bà, bà để bà ngửi chứ bà không ăn."^[2] or "Thị ơi thị rơi bị bà, bà để bà ngửi chứ bà không ăn").

The crone keeps her word and places it in her house as if it were decoration. She soon noes that the housework is always done when she gets home and a meal is prepared for her return as well. The next day she pretends to leave, and finds a woman, Tấm, appear from the apple. The crone then tore of the peel of the fruit when Tấm goes out, and she makes Tấm her adopted daughter.

One day, the king comes across the crone's house and stops to rest. She offers the king betel leaf. It was prepared the same style Tấm did when she was alive, so the king suspects. He asks who made it. The old woman tells him that her daughter did. The king demands to see the "daughter" and Tấm appears. The king gladly brings Tấm back to the palace.