Jay
and Neang Ruot
The story of Jay and Neang Tout is
very popular in the countryside of Takeo Province where I spent the first
twenty years of my life. The main character, Jay, is a stupid fellow and the
story is told order to teach young people not to be like him. This tale, then,
is one of the means by which village people, in their easy, informal way,
educate their children to practice commonsense in everyday life, and this is
how it goes.
Two young village people called Jay
and Neang Ruot, were engaged to be married. One afternoon, as Jay was looking
after cattle in the fields, Neang Ruot walked up to him and they began to chat.
Soon the young man said, ‘The sun is setting. We must go home before dark.’ His
fiancée looked at him very boldly. ‘I want to see you again,’ she said.’ Tonight
at my place.’ Jay was taken aback. Very few girls would dare suggest such a
meeting because Cambodian society is strict and young people cannot spend a lot
of time together before they are married and especially not at night. He
stuttered, ‘How can I go to your place? You father sleeps near the door and if
he hears me go up the stairs and into the house he’ll kill me. ‘Neang Ruot
replied, ‘I’ll tie a rope to a basket and lower it from the window. If you t in
the basket. I’ll pull you up to my room. Tonight, keep touching your ear. When
it feels cold then it will be time for you to come to me.’
That night, as soon as his ear felt
cold, Jay went to his fiancée’s house and sat in the basket beneath her window.
But Neang Ruot was not strong enough to pull him more than a few centimeters
from the ground. Then the rope broke and he basket thumped down in the hard
earth. Jay groaned at the shaking he got and the dog, woken by the noise,
started to nark. Neang Ruot’s father, fearing that thieves were stealing his
cattle, rushed downstairs with an axe. He struck at the human form lying on the
ground and just missed the head. As he bent to try again he was amazed to
recognize his future son-in law. ‘What are you doing here at this time of
night?! He gasped. ‘I’ve come to see your daughter.’ the father was both
shocked and angry. ‘How dare you. Whose idea was this?’ Jay hung his head. ‘Your daughter’s.’ ‘Neang Ruot, come here,’
called the father. ‘Is it true that this was your idea?’ ‘Yes father.’ The
father frowned. What a shameless girl you are.’ From that moment Neang Ruot’s
parents decided to marry the couple immediately before anything should happen
to disgrace their family.
The next morning Neang Ruot’s father
said to Jay, ‘I think you and mu daughter should marry within a day or two.
Please go and buy some ducks for the wedding feast.’ He gave Jay some money and
sent him off to a nearby village famous for its fat ducks for the wedding
feast.’ He gave Jay some money and sent him off to a nearby village famous for
its fat ducks.
Close to the village Jay saw many
ducks swimming on a large pond. He asked a small boy playing nearby, ‘Do those
ducks belong to you?’ the child was amazed that a grown man could think that a
mere lad might own a whole flock of ducks. He hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes.
Why?’ ‘I’m going to be married my boy,’ said Jay, ‘and I ducks for my wedding
feast. Will you sell me some?’ ‘Certainly,’ replied the child. ‘You can have
all of them for three hundred riels, but you will have to catch them yourself.’
‘That’s a very good bargain,’ said Jay and he paid the boy, who ran off as fast
as his legs could carry him. The cunning child well knew that the birds on the
pond were not fat farm ducks, whose wings were clipped, but lean wild ducks. As
Jay went into the water to catch them they flew off. He watched as they rose
higher and higher into the sky. ‘They must be going to heaven,’ he thought.
By now, evening was falling and it
began to rain. Jay took shelter under a newly-built house on the edge of the
village. It belonged to a couple who had just married and were spending their
first night together. ‘When I am with you my dear,’ said the husband to his
young wife, ‘I feel that I’m going to heaven.’ When Jay heard this he could not
contain himself. ‘If you’re going to heaven,’ he yelled, ‘please catch some
ducks for me.’ ‘Who’s that?’ said the husband. ‘We’re supposed to be alone.’ He
grabbed a stick, rushed downstairs and laid into Jay, who fled for home in the
rain and dark without money and without ducks. Neang Ruot’s father shook his
head sadly when Jay told him what had happened and the next day went himself to
buy food for the wedding feast.
A few days after the wedding Jay’s
father-in-law told him, 'We need oxen to plough our fields. Go and buy a pair
for me. Here is the money.’ Then he added, ‘Remember, we are not rich, so
please buy a pair of small animals. The smallest possible.’
Jay took the money and went to a
farmer who had oxen for sale. The man showed him the cattle but Jay hesitated.
‘I wonder if these are what my father-in-law wants. He asked me to buy a pair
of very small animals, the smallest possible.’ The farmer, who was quick-witted
and cunning said, ‘Just a moment. I may have something to suit you.’ He showed
Jay a pair of beetles. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘these are very small animals
indeed.’ Jay gave a shout of joy. ‘Just the thing. That must be exactly what
Dad meant. Thank you so much.’ And he paid the farmer and ran home.
‘Where are the animals?’ asked his
father-in-law. ‘Watch out Dad, you’ll stand on them,’ said foolish Jay.
‘They’re just what you wanted, the smallest possible,’ and he pointed to the
beetles. ‘What a stupid, stupid, fellow you are,’ said his father-in-law sadly.
One
day a little later Neang Ruot said to Jay, ‘You’d better go to the lake and
bathe before dinner. After you’ve had a good dip, take a mud bath too, just
like the water buffaloes do. It’s very good for your skin. ‘Yes dear,’ said Jay
obediently and did exactly as she suggested. But the foolish fellow didn’t sash
off the mud and came home plastered in brown, sticky earth which began to
harden. ‘I don’t feel comfortable, I’ll have to get this off,’ he said and
started to wipe himself with an old pillow. The mud was so dry by now that the
pillow case tore and he got covered in the feathers that fell out of it. ‘if
Neang Ruot sees me like this she’ll scold me,’ he thought, so he went to
hide in the loft where the rice was stored.
When
Neang Ruot came in she noticed a strange figure in at the feathery figure half
hidden in the shadows and said, ‘It must be the rice grain god. Quickly, burn
some incense and call your mother to come so that we can all kneel and welcome
the rice grain god to our home. We are honoured to have you here, God from the
East,’ he began respectfully. ‘Which direction is east, Dad?’ came a familiar
voice from the loft. ‘Oh, not you again you stupid fellow,’ said the father in
exasperation. His wife and daughter laughed at the queer brown and white figure
and ordered Jay back to the lake to wash off the mud and feathers.
In
time, the couple had a child. One day Neang Rout asked Jay, ‘Will look after
the baby for me while I go to the fields to work?’ ‘Certainly,’ said her
husband. Soon after Neang Ruot left the house the baby began to cry. Jay rocked
it in its tiny hammock made out of a towel tied at both ends with string and
fastened between two posts, but the child cried on and on. ‘I must see if there
is anything wrong with it,’ he thought. He examined the child thoroughly from
the toes up. When he reached the top of its head he noticed the pulse beating
where the two parts of the skull bone had not yet joined together. ‘Look at
that beating pulse. It must be a boil. No wonder the baby’s crying. I’d better
get a knife and lance the boil,’ he said to himself. He found a sharp knife and
cut into the baby’s head. Blood poured out and, as its life ebbed away, the
baby gradually stopped crying.
When
Neang Ruot came home Jay announced proudly, ‘You don’t know how to look after
our child. No wonder it cried. Didn’t you know it had a boil that needed
lancing? Now that I’ve attended to the boil the baby doesn’t cry anymore.’
Neang Ruot rushed to where the baby lay in the blood soaked hammock. ‘You’ve
killed our child,’ she gasped, horrified. Stupid Jay didn’t know what to say.
When
the first feeling of shock had left her Neang Ruot said to Jay, ‘You had better
take our child’s body and bury it.’ Jay wrapped the tiny form in a mat, then
carrying it under one arm, and with tools under the other, he went off to dig a
little grave. He was so upset and in such a daze that he didn’t notice when the
dead baby slipped from the mat under his arm and fell onto the road. He dug the
grave, placed the mat in it, covered it with earth and walked back home. On the
way, he came across the tiny body by the roadside. He took one look at it then
rushed to his wife. ‘Neang Ruot,’ he said, ‘other babies have died too. I have
just buried our child but there’s another one lying dead beside the road.
Perhaps there’s a sickness going around.’ Neang Ruot went to see what had
happened and as soon as she drew near to the child on the road she buried only
the mat. How could you?’ she cried. This time she carried the baby’s body to
the grave and stayed with her foolish husband to make sure that their child was
properly buried.
Neang
Ruot left home very early in the morning to visit a husband, ‘When the sun
comes up put some rice out to dry, not much, just enough for us tonight. Put it
on some cloth or a mat, any old thing will do, even a skin. Leave it in the
heat all day. I’ll cook it when I come home.’
Jay
could not find a piece of colt or a mat. ‘She said something about skin,’ he
thought. ‘Perhaps mu skin will do. So he picked up two fistfuls of rice and
stood outside all day, his hands, full of rice, outstretched to the sun. when
Neang Ruot came home she found the rice fine and dry and her husband so
sunburnt that she could hardly recognize him. ‘What a foolish man!’ she sighed.
‘That’s not fair,’ objected Jay. ‘I do everything you ask you never praise me.’
‘That’s because you can’t do anything right,’ replied Neang Ruot. ‘And so she
did, for Jay and Neang Ruot lived together until a ripe old age.
I’ve
heard that story so often I can’t remember where I heard it first. Everyone in
my province knows it; it’s told by grandparents, parents, at social gatherings,
on the radio. Boys learn to have commonsense by laughing at foolish Jay and
thinking for themselves, ‘I’d never do such sill things. I’d know the
difference between wild ducks and farm ducks. I wouldn’t kill my own child.’
Parents refer to this story again and again. If a does something foolish,
they’ll tease him by calling him Jay. If a girl is cheeky they’ll say, ‘Your
name should be Neang Ruot.’
I
am the only person in my family to receive a formal education beyond primary
school. I know that a university education gives you a lot of information but
it doesn’t necessarily make you any wiser than the village people you grew up
with. I have a strong admiration for the simple and pleasant way in which
village people educate their children in everyday life by using stories like
‘Jay and Neang Ruot’.
Told by
Mr. Sraloeung
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