Ooh, interesting.  Now how did it come to be that the Chinese also had such a tale - and did it get transmitted at some point?   What were the values in their culture?

Maxi

You're welcome, Maxi. You needn't mention it  There's more where that came from. The day isn't over yet

Nanna

The more you study these things, the more archetypes shared by all the people you discover.

Since I am going to see "Turandot" live from the Met tonight in HD, I have looked up that story from the 1920s, only to discover that:

The story of Turandot was taken from the Persian collection of stories called The Book of One Thousand and One Days ^[4] or Hezar o-yek shab (1722 French translation Les Mille et un jours by François Petis de la Croix — not to be confused with its sister work The Book of One Thousand and One Nights), where the character of "Turandokht" as a cold Chinese princess was found.^[5] The story of Turandokht is one of the best known from de la Croix's translation. (Wikipedia)

Oversimplifying the plot, one could venture to say that the sexual greed in "Turandot" (and that greed is easy to explain across the planet earth) overrides the fear of death as the law of the land Puccini presents to us is that "Any man who desires to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded".  

Note the universal use of the number three both in this tale and in the Golden Fish (for short).

I think the Little Match Girl is a wonderful story about the consequences of greed. 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Match_Girl

Hm, I just read in the Wikki description that she explains that her attitude revenge due to a previous princess having been murdered by a foreign prince.

Apparently the number three heralds back to the Greeks on our side, but I don't know what it signifies for the Chinese.

This is for you, Liliana,

Forum Videos

A very sweet animated take on the original story by H. C. Andersen

Here: http://www.animationartconservation.com/little_matchgirl.html

the story of how it was created.

This is very beautiful. Thank you, Nanna.     

I only know that you have to kiss somebody three times, while wishing something in some traditions, Russian for example. I am not sure about Polish. I think it is two. 

In the Native American tradition, it is four: you do certain things four times, to each side of the world. 

The reason why I am a little bit confused about the Polish tradition, is because my mother would usually kiss people two times, but it could have also been the Silesian tradition, or no special rule about the number of times you had to do something. They do not give even numbers of flowers in Poland as a tradition.  My father would always say that to kiss somebody two times was  bad luck, but his customs were more Russian.    

Traditionally, three. It is amazing, though, says my wife, how Poles start that kissing on a different cheek than Americans...