Cinderella - rated NC16

Laetitia used to hate Chinese language; she would cover her head with her blanket when I tried to read her a Chinese story book during bedtime. But with the new school and my mom coming over more often and speaking to her in Mandarin, I can see that Laetitia is slowly learning to like the language.

In an effort to encourage Laetitia to learn Chinese in a more fun way, I decided to buy some Chinese story books on a few of her favourite fairy tale titles and one of them was "Cinderella".

So one night, we got ourselves ready in bed for the usual bedtime reading. It was the first time I was to read this Chinese "Cinderella" to her.

The beginning of the story was pretty much the usual; evil stepmother and stepsisters doing the nasty and how Cinderella got to the ball. Then I reached the part of the story on the Prince, who was searching for his bride-to-be, was passing the glass slipper around hoping to marry the one whose foot fitted it.

That was when I gasped. And I was sure my pupils must have been dilated while I read out the gruesome tale. I was in for a rude shock.

It was all blood and gory! The stepmother passed her elder daughter a knife and ask her to hack off her toe when she couldn't squeeze her foot into the slipper! Yes! You hear me right! And that stupid bimbo actually did what she was told, she had her toe cut off! Anyway, her plan was thwart by this bird which told the prince about her bloody toe.

Then came the younger stepsister, whose toe was small enough to fit the front of the slipper but her heel got in the way. And as you might have guess it, she too, used the knife to shave off the back of her heel!! OUCH!!!

So much for happily ever after huh!!?? It was more like a scary graveyard tales than one I would have expected for a story meant to be read to children.

Fortunately, Laetitia's Chinese sucks so much, she doesn't understand anything from this chink version of Cinderella, which in my opinion should be rated NC16.