One Tail at a Time

Cucumbers and Naming Dates

For a while, she merely sits daydreaming before me while that smile only grows bigger along with my impatience which I make known.   The girl is actually highly intelligent and quick to learn anything new, only her habit of daydreaming, or ghosting out as she puts it, is a hindrance I find intolerable and it is only her exceptional youth that I draw back the urge to growl, instead I give her a little push to explain how the eggs were made.

And it is here that I am given a cute story which even I think is appropriate for her.  Though her use of allegory to describe how a father wren collects honey from the bees which he feeds to a mother wren in the middle of the night, thus producing the uniquely golden splotched eggs, is rather clever and as I said, an appropriate lesson for a little girl.

Only, she is nearing the age of marriage and that story will only serve as a hindrance to her when the times comes to consummate her marriage.  What little she knows will only create fear and disappointment, it is best that she learns the truth and this is never so important as it is now.  She will be joining us on Kunlun Mountain soon, I need her to understand that kissing her brothers and sharing spit is not allowed.  Though I do briefly think back to her mother and wonder if I should have her present for this talk rather than her brother who obviously still sees her as a kit.

In the end, I decide against it.  I am her spiritual father and her teacher, if I cannot give her this knowledge without worrying about stepping on toes, then it only renders my position of a professional teacher to that of a mere assistant to her parents and therefore inconsequential.  After all, a Spiritual Father is no small title, not when I am in the same level as her own father which I take seriously, therefore what I am teaching her, is no different to anything I else I will teach her, and that includes reproduction which her brothers also learn about but via biology which I also place this lesson under.

So deeming her story most cute for a child, I then move her along by exclaiming that there is far more to it than that while also moving her attention away from the eggs and onto herself and how she was made.   Only a sudden explosion of excitement in her eyes before most dramatically asking if this is about how bean sprouts are created in a womans belly using cucumbers and salad dressing, has me clutching at my head in both embarrassment and disbelief.

Dear Buddha have mercy.....!

  I do not need to hear anymore to know exactly where this story heads, and so for another few seconds I seriously consider ending this lesson to call in her mother regardless of my earlier thoughts.  Only, the look of pure innocence and confusion on her little upturned face along with what looks to be concern, has me realizing, that if she is to learn anything, and if I am to get passed the fact that she is my first female student, then I need to put aside all discomforts and concerns and be the Shifu that she needs.  And for me to do that, I need to know exactly what she knows. 

It is pointless adding more information if she is already aware of the basic facts which is what I am aiming for rather than an explicit lesson which I got from my father, and it is his teachings I am dwelling on as I consider which parts might still be appropriate depending on what she knows.  So demanding that she give me a full account of the story her brother taught her, I watch as the confusion and concern is let go and her face lights up brilliantly.

And so begins a story of how a girl takes a cucumber filled with salad dressing, rubs it most vigorously until it is hot and then eats it so that its contents can explode in her belly to fertilize an egg that her body produces.  This ritual she informs me is called 'Fertilizing the Egg Ritual' and not only does the cucumber explode her in belly, but it creates little bean sprouts that race for the egg and according to her, she is the fastest of all the beansprouts because she won the race.