A tale

I wrote a story in English years ago for my thesis research on kids. Now I'm trying to translate it to Chinese for kids in Taiwan. It feels interesting to see a tale being presented in two languages. And I just found that, although I wrote the English version myself, and I'm perfectly fluent in Chinese, it doesn't mean that I can do the translation work effortlessly....

So here are paragraphs of the little tale.


A Long is an animal. Many people call a Long an eastern dragon. However, a Long is not a dragon, and a dragon is not a Long.

Here is something about a Long. A Long flies through the air, especially on wet days. It blows out clouds and makes rain. A Long does not breathe fire or eat sheep as a dragon does. On dry days, like most days in Los Angeles, a Long rests by water. There are big waters like oceans and small waters like ponds. Usually, a big Long prefers big water and a small Long is content with small water.

Luti is a small Long. He is 132 years old. That is a long time for a human, but for Longs, Luti is still a child.

Luti likes to turn and whirl in the sky, even on sunny days. He is very playful. When it is time to sleep, his favorite spot is a lake in the mountains. When he wants to take a nap, he is also happy with a small pond or even a swimming pool in someone’s backyard.

A big Long, like Guda, is over 3,000 years old. Guda often rests by the Pacific Ocean. Luti does not rest as much as Guda does.

Young or old, all Long are peaceful and gentle. They are always smiling, and you can tell it from their eyes.

A Long is beautiful. Luti has antlers like a young deer. His round, lively eyes are like those of a curious baby cow. His skin is covered in shining blue scales. Beneath his snake-like, sparkling body are the claws of an eagle.

A Long is elegant, and powerful. Luti is short. The distance from Luti’s piggy nose to his fishy tail is five feet. If a nine-year-old reaches up with his hands, Luti’s length would stretch from the boy’s fingertips to his toes.

Old Long Guda is not short. She is almost 1 mile long, it takes a human child thirty minutes to walk from her head to her tail. (The child doesn’t play with Guda on the way, or it will take a lot longer.)

Even though Luti is young, he is already responsible for making rain. Because he is small, he takes care of mists and drizzles. Old Guda controls downpours and storms. Luti whirls to make mists and dances hard to make drizzles. Guda moves slowly forward and the sky pours rain.

A Long does not visit another Long regularly as human friends usually do. Just like it is hard to have mists and downpours in the same place and at the same time, Luti hardly sees old Guda. One usually comes on duty before or after the other. There are not that many Longs on Earth. Besides old Guda, Luti only knows two other Longs. They are both much older and bigger than Luti is, but still, younger and smaller than old Guda.

Brim is a young Long. For a few times, Luti met with Brim in a raining sky. Brim is 600 years older and 30 feet longer than Luti is. He has sparkling black scales. Once Luti and Brim danced together in the air and their scales shone. People on the ground felt as if it was going to storm.

However, a Long is often alone. Sometimes, Luti likes to play with a little girl. When Luti whirls smoothly around her, she feels the fresh breeze. She grins with delight and Luti smiles