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Aladdin

lordmongrove

lordmongrove

Justified & Ancient
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May 30, 2009
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Anyone know why Aladdin, a middle eastern story is depicted as taking place in China in pantomimes?
 
In short, some of the original stories in the 1001 Nights originally came along the silk route from China to Persia.

Martin23 appears to be some sort of, 'social consumer web platform' spammer. Let's see what happens nest.

Edit: Since removed as a spammer--Yith
 
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garrick92 said:
I don't know, but I suspect, that China provided a more recognisable setting for the tale than the Arabian peninsula, a far-away place of which working class Brits in the golden age of panto would have had little or no knowledge.

On the other hand, paint your face yellow, wear one of those paddy-farmer hats and a pigtail, and speak in a chinkee-chonkee manner and everything makes sense. One foreign part being as foreign as any other. Rather like Shakespeare's version of France in As You Like It, where monkeys, lions and other exotic fauna are referred to as common. Most theatre-goers didn't have a clue, they just wanted an exciting tale set in foreign parts.

Apart from the bit about genies, which don't figure in Chinese mythology, but who would have cared about that, or even noticed?
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If chinese folkore doesn't have genies, is there something else which performs the same function?

Granter of wishes, unpredictably helpful or damaging, supernatural prisoner forced into service....
 
I seem to remember fox spirits are a big deal in Chinese folklore. There's probably more.
 
This question has always puzzled me, whenever I see the pantomime.
The other characters are all Arabic, except presumably Widow Twanky; why is the story mostly set in China?

Wikipedia has an interesting take on it;
Although Aladdin is a Middle Eastern tale, the story is set in China, and Aladdin is explicitly Chinese.[5] However, most of the people in the story are Muslims; there is a Jewish merchant who buys Aladdin's wares (and incidentally cheats him), but there is no mention of Buddhists or Confucians. Everybody in this country bears an Arabic name, and its monarch seems much more like a Muslim ruler than a Chinese emperor. Some commentators believe that this suggests that the story might be set in Turkestan (encompassing Central Asia and the modern Chinese province of Xinjiang).[6] It has to be said that this speculation depends on a knowledge of China that the teller of a folk tale (as opposed to a geographic expert) might well not possess,[7] and that a deliberately exotic setting is in any case a common storytelling device.

For a narrator unaware of the existence of the New World, Aladdin's "China" would represent "the Utter East" while the sorcerer's homeland in the Maghreb (Northern Africa) represented "the Utter West". In the beginning of the tale, the sorcerer's taking the effort to make such a long journey, the longest conceivable in the narrator's (and his listeners') perception of the world, underlines the sorcerer's determination to gain the lamp and hence the lamp's great value. In the later episodes, the instantaneous transitions from the east to the west and back, performed effortlessly by the Jinn, make their power all the more marvelous.
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So China was chosen as an exotic location at the edge of the known world; fascinating.
 
New Aladdin film is good fun with Will Smith hamming it up as the Genie, Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. A musical/fantasy/comedy with some good song and dance numbers. Don't start thinking about the plot, just enjoy it. A great thieving monkey and an anthropomorphic flying carpet. Cool tiger as well. 7/10
 
With a pedigree dating back to 1704, we can safely say that if anyone interfers with our Twankey, it's cultural appropriation! :rcard:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
...if anyone interfers with our Twankey...
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ken.jpg


maximus otter
 
eburacum said:
This question has always puzzled me, whenever I see the pantomime.
The other characters are all Arabic, except presumably Widow Twanky; why is the story mostly set in China?

...China was chosen as an exotic location at the edge of the known world...
Click to expand...

I'm put in mind of Puccini's opera Turandot: Based on an ancient Persian story; set in China because mysterious.

maximus otter
 
Perhaps the tale isn't so widely known as I'd supposed!

Two men have been arrested in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly duping a doctor into buying an "Aladdin's lamp" that they promised would bring him wealth and health.

As part of the con, they even pretended to conjure up spirits from the lamp, in line with the tale from The Arabian Nights, Indian media report.
The men had reportedly wanted more than $200,000 for the lamp but settled for a down payment of $41,600.
A third, female, suspect is at large.

The doctor reportedly filed a complaint with local police in Meerut, western Uttar Pradesh, earlier this week.
In the complaint, quoted by NDTV, he said he met the two men when he began treating a woman he understood to be their mother over the course of a month.

"Gradually they started telling me about a baba (godman) whom they claimed also visited their home. They started brainwashing me and asked me to meet this baba," he says, according to NDTV. He then did meet the baba "who seemed to perform such rituals".
He also reportedly said that "during one visit 'Aladdin' actually made an appearance in front of me" and it was only later that he realised one of the accused had been dressing up as the iconic figure.

Other reports in Indian media suggest that the suspects pretended to conjure up a genie, to convince the doctor of the lamp's authenticity.
The men eventually offered him the lamp, promising it "would bring wealth, health and good fortune", for 15,000,000 Indian rupees ($201,200) but settled for a down payment of 33,10000 rupees ($41,584).

A senior Meerut police officer, Amit Rai, told NDTV that the same men were suspected of cheating other families in similar ways. "Two have been arrested. A woman is on the run," he said.

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54759863
 
A fool and his money, etc.
 
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