Ye Xian

Ye Xian (Simplified Chinese: 叶限; Traditional Chinese: 葉限; pinyin: Yè Xiàn) or in the southern part, Yeh-Shen is a Chinese fairy tale that resembles the European Cinderella story (but about a millennium older).^[1] It is one of the oldest known variants of Cinderella,^[2] first published in the 9th-century compilation Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang.

Plot

A scholar named Wu, who is chieftain of a community of cave-dwellers, had two wives and a daughter by each of them. Yeh-Shen is Wu's beautiful daughter of one wife, and she is intelligent, artistic and gifted in many skills such as pottery and poetry. In contrast her half-sister, Jun-li, is spoiled, self-interested and lazy.

When her mother and then her father die from a local plague, Yeh-Shen is forced to become a lowly servant and work for her father's other wife, named Jin (Yeh's evil stepmother) and her daughter, Jun-li. Despite living a life burdened with chores and housework, and suffering endless abuse at her stepmother's hands, she finds solace when she ends up befriending a beautiful, 10-foot-long (3.0 m) fish in the lake. With golden eyes and scales, the fish is the reincarnation of her mother, who now watches out for her.

Angry that Yeh-Shen has found happiness, Jin kills the fish and serves it for dinner for herself and her daughter. Yeh-Shen is devastated until a spirit appears and tells her to bury the bones of the fish in pots at each corner of her bed. The spirit also tells her that whatever she needs will be granted if she talks to the bones.

The local spring festival takes place, where many young women will have the opportunity to meet potential suitors. Not wishing to spoil her own daughter's chances, Jin forces her stepdaughter to remain home and clean their cave-house. After her stepfamily has left, Yeh-Shen is visited by her mother's spirit again. Her mother tells her to dig up the pots containing the fish bones and Yeh-Shen finds fine clothes, including a cloak of kingfisher feathers, jewellery, and a pair of golden slippers to wear to the festival.

Yeh-Shen dons the clothes and goes to the festival by foot. She stays and enjoys herself until she realizes her stepmother may have recognized her and leaves, accidentally leaving behind a golden slipper. When she arrives home, she hides the clothes in the pots beneath her bed again. When her stepfamily returns, they discuss Jun-li's marriage prospects and also mention a mysterious maiden who appeared. They are unaware that it is Yeh-Shen they are speaking of.

The golden slipper is found and traded by various people until it reaches the hands of a nearby King. Fascinated by the shoe's small size, he issues a search to find the maiden whose foot will fit into the shoe and proclaims he will marry that girl. The shoe eventually reaches the cave-house of Yeh-Shen, Jun-li and her mother try to put on the shoe and fail. The shoe ends up fitting Yeh-Shen's foot perfectly.

In an attempt to dissuade the King from marrying Yeh-Shen, Jin declares that it was impossible for Yeh-Shen to have been at the festival. She saw the maiden who owns the golden slipper at the festival, the fine clothes she wore, and also mentions that Yeh-Shen was at home the entire time. Yeh-Shen proves her wrong by bringing out and putting the clothes she wore at the festival and the other golden slipper and the King, awed by Yeh-Shen's beauty, affirms that he will marry her, and she will become his chief wife in his palace. Jin makes a final attempt to dissuade the King from marrying her stepdaughter by accusing Yeh-Shen of stealing the maiden's golden shoe, but however, the King caught on and her evil plan was exposed. To punish Yeh-Shen's stepfamily for their cruelty and dishonesty, he forbids Yeh-Shen from bringing them to live with her. Jin and Jun-li were banished to a cave, where they spend the rest of their lives together until they are crushed to death by a shower of flying stones.

Adaptations

The novel Bound by Donna Jo Napoli is a retelling of this fairy tale.

Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story From China retold by Ai-Ling Louie and illustrated by Ed Young is well-known children's picture book adaptation of the fairy tale.

Yeh-Shen was also animated for the CBS Saturday Morning show, CBS Storybreak.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia® - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the Wikipedia® encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.

 

Thanks to Encyclopedia The Free Dictionary / Farlex, Inc.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/p/Ye%20Xian

 

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Apostrophe Placement in Proper Names

What do the brand names Bakers Choice, the Diners Club, and Mrs. Fields Cookies have in common? Besides prompting hunger, they're all "supposed" to have apostrophes in their names.

 

So, why don't they? A choice that belongs to bakers is a bakers' choice, a club that belongs to diners is a diners' club, and cookies that belong to Mrs. Fields are Mrs. Fields's (or, depending on which style tradition you adhere to, Mrs. Fields') cookies. The name for the Diners Club gets a pass because it can also be argued that it refers to a club for diners, and thus is attributive (for the same reason that, for example, the name of the California Teachers Association lacks an apostrophe — it serves, rather than is a possession of, teachers).

 

But the baking-products company and the cookie maker, like Barclays Bank and many other businesses, evidently decided that apostrophes are confusing or distracting and opted to omit them. Similarly, the Hells Angels opted for a streamlined look at the expense of proper style, and I don't know about you, but I'm not about to walk into the local chapter headquarters and start complaining about the motorcycle club's error. (You go ahead — I'll wait for you here.)

 

The Levi's brand name for jeans and other apparel is problematic; technically, something that belongs to the company would be referred to as Levi's's, but we'll yield to practicality and pretend that the owner is Mr. Strauss, and anything of his is Levi's. And though I prefer that the possessive case be signaled with an apostrophe and an s, not the symbol alone, though "Thomas's" would look better, I'll cut Thomas' English Muffins some slack.

 

But the one company name that is indefensibly wrong is Lands' End; this labels clumsily conjures multiple capes or points converging on one geographical coordinate. The misplaced apostrophe is reportedly the result of an early typographical error deemed too costly to correct; on such small but momentous decisions is derision based.

 

Regardless of which possessive style you or your employer prefers, when it comes to proper names, writers and editors must bow to the usage of a name's owners — and in order to guarantee that the usage you use is correct, verify company, organization, and brand names on the website of the business or group itself.

 

Thanks to Mark Nichol / Daily Writing Tips
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/apostrophe-placement-in-proper-names/

 

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Interesting Facts About Airlines, Airports And Air Traveling

• All International Airline Pilots speaks English.

• Flights longer than 8 hours require 3 pilots (1 captain and 2 first officers) to rotate flying duties.

• Flights longer than 12 hours require four pilots (1 captain and 3 first officers). They usually fly 3-4 hour shifts.

• Each airline pilot flying the aircraft eats a different meal to minimize the risk of all pilots on board being ill.

• On average, pilots fly between 9 and 14 days a month (Indian company pilots fly 24 to 26 days)

• All airlines have an agreement to let each other's travelling pilots occupy empty seats. If no seats are available, the travelling pilot can also occupy an extra seat in the cockpit that is usually empty.

• The main function of flight attendants is for the safety and security of their passengers, and passenger comfort is only secondary.

• The first female flight attendants in 1930 were required to weigh less than 115 pounds. In addition, they had to be nurses and unmarried.

• Flight attendants must not have any tattoos visible when a uniform is worn. These requirements are designed to give the airlines a positive representation.

• The normal ratio of Flight Attendants to passenger seats is one Flight Attendant for every 50-passenger seats.

• The height requirement for Flight Attendant is for safety reasons, making sure that all flight attendants can reach overhead safety equipment.

• The normal ratio of Lavatories to passengers is approximately one lavatory for every 50 passengers.

• An air traveler can lose approximately 1.5 liters of water in the body during a three-hour flight.

• The reason why the lights are turned out during takeoff and landing – Is for your eyes to adjust to lower levels of light. If there is an accident and they have to activate the emergency slides, studies have shown that you will be able to see better and therefore be able to evacuate more quickly and safely.

• The World's largest Airline in terms of Fleet Size is Delta Airlines (United States) with 744 aircraft and 121 aircraft on order as of March 2011.

• The largest passenger plane is the Airbus 380 - nearly 240 feet long, almost 80 feet high, and has a wingspan of more than 260 feet. The double-decker plane has a standard seating capacity of 555 passengers.

• The world's busiest airport in terms of passenger volume or the number of takeoffs and landings is Hartsfield – Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia, United States – with more than 88 million passengers shuffled through the Atlanta airport in 2009, with another 20 million in the first three months of 2010, and with aircraft take-off and landings approximately every 37 seconds.

• The Internet / On-Line check-in were first used by Alaskan Airlines in 1999.

• The world's Largest Airport is Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan (as of 2011). By 2013 Al -Maktoum International Airport in Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates is planned to be the largest airport in the world.

• The airport with the longest runway in the world is Qamdo Bangda Airport in the People's Republic of China with 5.50 kilometers in length (as of 2011).

• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by removing 1 olive from each salad served in first class.

• In 2009, Southwest served 63.2 million cans of soda, juices, and water; 14 million bags of pretzels; 90 million bags of peanuts; 17.7 million Select-A-Snacks; and 33.5 million other snacks.

• Singapore Airlines spends about $700 million on food every year alone.

• Cathay Pacific carries rice cookers, toasters, cappuccino makers, and skillets on board their airplanes.

• KLM of Netherlands stands for Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (meaning Royal Dutch Airlines).

• KLM is the worlds' oldest airline established in 1919.

• QANTAS - Australia's national airline originally stood for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service.

• QANTAS is the second world's oldest airline established in 1920.

• QANTAS still has the world's best safety record with no crashes as of 2011.

• Virgin Atlantic lists catering as their third biggest expense, after fuel and maintenance.

• American Airlines spent about $425 million on food for domestic passengers in 2001.

• In one year, British Airways passengers consume
              * 40.5 tons of chicken
              * 6 tons of caviar
              * 22 tons of smoked salmon
              * 557,507 boxes of chocolate

• Abu Dhabi Airport Services once did a complete turn-around for a Boeing 777 in less than 40 minutes, as opposed to a normal minimum of one hour. They unloaded passengers, cargo, and mail, cleaned the aircraft, and loaded outbound passengers, cargo, and mail in that short time.

• In 2001, Dubai Duty Free sold 1,570,214 cartons of cigarettes, 2,909 kilograms of gold, 101,824 watches, 690,502 bottles of perfume, 52,119 mobile phones.

• In-flight catering is an $18 billion worldwide industry employing up to 200,000 people.

• Delta Airline was the first to introduce Air Bridge, which saved travellers lengthy walk from the plane to the terminal.

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