Selling Fragrant Farts (Taiwan Folktale)

## Farter info

### Farter type:

Young brother: quiet and modest, sincere, fragrantOlder brother: greedy, mean, bully, sour, and stinky

**Selling Fragrant Farts** (*賣香屁*) is a Taiwanese folktale that tells about two brothers, their differences and how they act, and how each their personalities and farts fare differently in a circumstance which will grant them what they deserve.

## The story

In a town village somewhere in the countryside lived two brothers. one was older and the other was younger brother, they were pole opposites of each other different. The big brother was sometimes lazy and capable of great wrongdoing. Everybody in the countryside feared him. The young little brother, on the other hand, was quiet, deferential, modest, and sincere. He was welcomed and respected by all.

When their father died, the big brother tricked the little brother out of most of his inheritance such as the big house and field, leaving the younger brother with a tiny sugarcane field with a tiny house. The older brother also wanted the ox for himself too, So the brothers compete in a tug of war for it by trying to pull ox to either of their side. The big brother pulls the ox by its nose and the little brother pulls the ox by its tail, When the brothers started to pull the ox, the wife of the big brother helped his husband cheat by patted the ox's back and the ox moved forward to his side making the big brother the winner. The younger brother got nothing. Their neighbor noticed this and felt sorry for the younger brother, so he gave the younger brother a rooster.

One day, the younger brother brought the rooster with him to a wedding banquet, but it was eaten by the host's dog. The younger brother was sad and cried loudly. Fearing that the crying would be inauspicious for the wedding, the host gave the younger brother the dog as compensation. The next day, the younger brother brought the dog with him to till the field. A rice merchant who was passing by felt amused. He made a bet with the younger brother, “If your dog tills this field, I'll give you all my rice for free.” The younger brother agreed to the bet and threw a rice ball in front of the dog. The dog saw the rice ball and ran forward, dragging the plow. When the dog almost got to the rice ball, the younger brother picked it up and threw it further away. The dog kept chasing the rice ball, and before long, the sugarcane field was completely tilled. The merchant ended up giving the younger brother all of his rice. The older brother heard about the dog and borrowed it from the younger brother. He made a bet with a cloth merchant that the dog could till the field. This time, the dog refused to move because it had learned its lesson. Having lost the bet, the older brother was furious and beat the dog to death.

The younger brother was sad to see that his dog had died, and cried while he buried it. One month later, black beans sprouted from the dog's grave. The younger brother cooked the beans and ate it. Strangely, after eating the black beans, he began to fart loudly. Even more strangely, the fart smelled nice! The younger brother decided to go to the city to sell his fragrant farts. The county magistrate heard about this and told the younger brother, “If your fart is indeed fragrant, I will reward you with twenty ingots of silver. However, if your fart doesn't smell good, I will beat you twenty times with a stick!” The younger brother got the reward in the end. When his greedy brother heard about the reward, he also cooked and ate the black beans, and went to find the county magistrate to sell his fart. However, his fart smelled awful and the county magistrate beat him twenty times with a stick.

In the end, the younger brother's fart cured the daughter of a rich landowner. He was not only rewarded with a lot of gold, he also married the landowner's daughter.

## In Media and culture

This folktale seems to have its popularity among both the youth and general public in both Taiwan and China to the point of it having theatrical plays even in schools, animated adaptions in some Chinese and Taiwanese youtube kid channels as well education channels sometimes each variations varies. further back it also got a tv drama adaption in the 1988 taiwanese tv series, *Chinese legendary story* (*中國民間故事*),

the folktale also got a stageplay adaption of Outside of China and Taiwan, but instead of the story focusing on two brothers, it focused on two sisters. this adaption was aptly named The Two Farting Sisters and was performed in New zealand during the Wellington Fringe at the Bats Theatre in 2014 and the Auckland Chinese Lantern fringe Festival held at Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre in 2015.

## Videos

賣香屁賣香屁 - 屁還有香屁嗎？還能賣錢！ - 萌朵動畫故事 - 寓言故事 - 經典童話 - 睡前故事 - Chinese Fairy Tales - MamdorBaby萌朵寶寶小青蛙劇團 - 賣香屁 (短篇)賣香屁 (上下集一起看，精彩不間段❤️) ｜周遊世界享故事 ｜世界童話｜民間故事 - 斐寶樂學｜SelltheNiceSmellFart｜MaiSiangPi｜動畫｜Fairy&FolkTales