Baby Belly Buttons By Amerra's The Crab And The Monkey

The message in Tasty Baby Belly Buttons is indeed important, but not necessarily Japanese. Not only does the author not acknowledge the effect of her textual changes on the message, but further associates the story to Japan by including certain Japanese phrases in the text. When describing how an old couple found Uriko, she writes “a melon came floating along, tsunbara, tsunbara” (Sierra 4), along with “He was just getting ready to cut it open when he heard a crying noise, boro, boro” (Sierra 4). The sets of repeated words are “Japanese onomatopoeic phrases” that are used to create rhythm in stories. By including these phrases throughout the story, she reinforces the connection of her story to Japanese culture, which further undermines Japanese

culture. Sierra goes beyond changing the main character’s gender from male to female, and creates a hierarchy within the group, thus misrepresenting Japanese culture as well as emasculating the intended message by replacing it with her personal feminist agenda.
Similarly, the folktale The Crab and the Monkey has been popularized in the United States over the past century, and the American versions include some surprising changes to the plot line.

In the storyline of the original folktale, a sly monkey tricks a crab into trading her rice ball for a persimmon seed, but the seed ends up blooming into a prosperous tree. So, out of jealousy the monkey pretends to help the crab by climbing the tree to pick the fruit, and instead throw the unripe fruit at her, killing her. When the crab’s offspring grow up, they, along with their friends, set out on a mission to avenge the death of their mother, and eventually defeat him by killing the monkey. The American version of the story, first introduced published in the United States in 1958, completely removes the crab’s offspring and death from the story. Instead, the story concludes with the crab and his friends confronting the monkey until he admits he was wrong, saying “I really did a bad thing when I ate all Mr. Crab’s good persimmons and threw the green, hard ones at him. I promise never to do such a bad thing again. Please forgive me” (Sakade 96). Although these alterations may be a way of protecting its young readers from being introduced to violence and death from such a young age, these changes in the storyline strip it of the Japanese values it originally

embodied.
The core value that is the basis of The Crab and the Monkey is the importance of familial hierarchy and respect.

The monkey disrespects the crab by killing her out of selfishness, but her children avenge her by killing him, as it is their duty to their ancestor to protect the family legacy. By removing this important aspect of the storyline, the American version censors the true Japanese meaning, possibly because otherwise the tale would be considered too violent. But, in actuality, by removing the concept of avenging one’s ancestors, the story becomes more violent. In the original Japanese story, the monkey does kill the crab, but the story highlights how meaningless violence is unacceptable and should be punished harshly. In the American version, however, the monkey commits a similar act of violence, but is expected to be taught his lesson by making him apologize, a much milder punishment than that of the original text. The resulting message in the American version is simply to not bully others, which is different from the original message that disrespect is not tolerated and that familial pride is more important than the individual. Not only does the American version change the lesson by stripping the text of its Japanese values, but it tries to pretend as if the new story can still be attributed to Japan. The true essence of the text is gone, but the stereotypical Japanese elements remain, including the persimmons and rice balls which are foods native to Japan. This

possibly unintentional flaw can have disastrous implications, as it introduces Americans to a false representation of the Japanese culture and the ancient principles it values. This only widens the cultural disparity between America and Japan, because it could lead to not just a greater difference between countries, but a complete lack of appreciation for the other country’s culture.
This trend of replacing some elements of Japanese fairy tales that are essential to the cultural value of the text speaks to something more than just a cultural disparity. The fact that this is a common theme in American versions of Japanese stories shows how American’s still display a lack of respect towards Japanese culture and ideals. Similar to how during World War II extreme tensions existed between Japanese and American soldiers because the Japanese were willing to do whatever it took to honor their family and country, and the Americans viewed this as unnecessary violence, while the Japanese viewed Americans as disgraceful.