A Chinese
retelling of Little Red Riding Hood which challenges the assumed
passivity and
helplessness of girls and women implicit in the
English version. Unlike the English version, the mother of three daughters goes to visit the children’s
grandmother, leaving the three girls at home alone overnight. Like the original version, a wolf, lurking outside the house, poses as the children’s grandmother in order to gain access to the house and the children. While the usual “what a big nose you have grandma” exchange takes place, one of the girls, suspicious of this ‘grandmother’, discovers the truth and concocts a clever plan to trick the wolf and escape with her sisters, ultimately ‘disposing’ of the wolf. Offering to gather some ginkgo nuts for the wolf, the three girls escape up the ginkgo tree, trick the wolf into letting them pull him up in a basket with ropes and send him plummeting to his death when they let go of the ropes.
I prefer this story to the English version. It is more empowering for girls and their sense of control over what happens to them. It promotes their agency, their intelligence and their courage, and thereby provides a much more positive and appropriate message than ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ which is about male power (the wolf and the woodsman) and female dependency, helplessness and passivity (Little Red Riding Hood and grandma).