Tấm

Tấm is the titular main protagonist of the Vietnamese folktale Tấm Cám, which is noted for its similarity to Cinderella. She is Cám's older stepsister, who is abused by Cám and the latter's mother until the Buddha helps her to marry the king.
==Biography==
Tấm's mother died early, and his father remarried. Unfortunately, he died as well soon after, allowing her stepmother and stepsister, Cám, to fully control the house and force Tấm to do all the homework while they lived in luxury.
One day, the stepmother tells Tấm and Cám to catch caridina with the promise of a new yếm (a traditional Vietnamese bodice) to whoever catches more. Tấm manages to catch more but is tricked by Cám so that the latter can take all caradina for herself. However, Cám left a goby, which the Buddha instructs Tấm to raise with specific words.
Unfortunately, Cám spies on Tấm and learns of the goby and the words, thus she and her mother conspires to catch it. The stepmother tricks Tấm to go away from the house, allowing her and Cám to butcher and eat the goby, leaving only its bones. The Buddha then instructs Tấm to put them into four jars and bury them under her bed legs.
Soon after, the king holds a festival which he invites everyone to join. Tấm also wants to go, but the stepmother tells her to separate the mixed up rice and bran first, and that she will be punished if the work is still not done when the stepmother and Cám return from the festival. Tấm is desperate, but the Buddha once again appears and summons the sparrows to help her finish the work. The four jars then give her suitable clothes for the festival. While crossing the bridge, she drops a slipper which the king finds. Believing that it must belong to a gracious woman, he summons all women from the festival to try it, and the owner shall be his wife. Everyone, including Cám, tries and fails, before Tấm arrives. Despite the stepmother and Cám mocking her, Tấm tries anyway and fits, thus she becomes the king's wife, much to her stepmother and stepsister's envy.
Afterwards, Tấm returns home for her father's death day, and still treats her stepmother and stepsister kindly despite everything. However, the two still conspire for Cám to replace Tấm as the queen, so the stepmother tricks Tấm to climb on an areca tree before chopping it off, causing her to fall down and die. However, Tấm reincarnates into an oriole, then two peach trees which Cám chops down to make a loom. The loom threatens to gouge Cám's eyes out, thus Cám burns it and throws the ash far away from the palace. There Tấm reincarnates as a golden apple tree with only one fruit, which an old woman takes in after being enticed by its scent, promising to only smell its scent but never eat it.
Whenever the woman is away, Tấm will exit the fruit and do all the housework for her. Eventually discovering this, the old woman tears off the peel and adopts Tấm, until the king crosses her house and reunites with the latter. He also brings the woman into the palace. Tấm then starts to punish her abusers, starting with tricking Cám into bathing in boiling water, thus killing the latter. Afterwards, Tấm uses Cám's corpse to make a sauce and sends it to the stepmother, lying that it's a "gift from Cám". Eventually the stepmother discovers the truth and dies in horror, completing Tấm's revenge.
==Trivia==
*In Vietnamese, Tấm's name means "broken rice", which is rice that despite having been broken through the manufacturing process, is still just as nutritious. This reflects the fact that despite being abused by the stepmother and Cám, Tấm is still a good person.
*In some older versions of the tale, she was actually Cám's twin sister.
Category:Female
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