The Ugly Boatman

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The Ugly Boatman, a romantic story from Vietnam

There was once a lonely fisherman by the name of Troung Chi. Every  evening, he sat in the back of his  boat, and glided down the river.  As he sailed, he played upon his flute that was made of bamboo, and all who heard his music agreed it was the most beautiful sound they had ever heard.  Now you might think that such a master of  beauty would easily find a girl who wished to marry him.  But his face was ugly, and the girls in his village shunned him. And so he lived alone.

At this time there lived a young lady who was as rich and beautiful as the fisherman was poor and ugly.  However, she too was lonely. Her father was a wealthy lord  and he thought the world of his lovely daughter.  But as he never wanted to lose her, he forbade her to leave his mansion. And so she spent her days sitting in her room, safe, but alone.

However, her day was not empty of distraction. Every evening she sat at her window, which overlooked the river, and waited for the fisherman to slip past. The sweet notes of his flute thrilled her heart and set her imagination on fire. She imagined that she was lying back in the boat and gazing up into the eyes of her strong and handsome fisherman as he played his serenade for her upon his flute. “I have never met him in except in my dreams,” she said to herself, “but his music tells me all I need to know about him. He is beautiful and kind, passionate and loving.  And I detect something else in his music.  Yes, I feel it so strongly –  just like me,  he is lonely.  We are connected. We are meant to be together.  I swear that I shall marry him one day.”

But time went by and life followed the same pattern. Her father showed no sign of willingness to release his daughter from her gilded prison. She pleaded with him to summon the boy to the house so that she could look him in the eyes, but he shook his head and said that a  fisherman was far beneath the rank of a mandarin’s daughter.  He ordered his servants to move her to the other side of the mansion, so that she  could no longer be distracted by the cheeky flute-playing fisherman.

She lay in her new room and sobbed.  She sobbed and sobbed until she became  so ill that her father feared for her life.  At last he relented.  He sent for the fisherman and asked him to sit beside his daughter’s bed and play his flute.  If his music proved to be strong enough medicine to cure her, he would be rewarded with a bag of gold.

Troung Chi sat by the bed and played.  As he played, he felt a mysterious connection with this pour girl who was in a sleep so deep that it was almost like death.  His sweet notes reached her inner soul, and the warmth of his love came over her body and revived her.  At last she opened her eyes and looked up at him – the fisherman of her dreams.

But oh, he was ugly!  How frightful!  This was not at all as she had imagined.