The son of The Turtle-Spirit

In this story, a turtle that had relationship with a girl was killed by the girl's father. The girl became pregnant and bore a child. After seven years, a rich man asked the son of the turtle to put his grandfather's remains in a dragon's mouth. But instead of putting the rich man's grandfather remains in a dragon's mouth, he put his father's bone. He hanged the rich man's grandfather remains on the dragon's horn. When he reach ten years, he became cleverer than anyone else. Later, he became Emperor and the rich man's son became his minister.

If I were to use this story in my classroom, I would ask my students to talk about Chinese believes on turtles and let them relate the turtle into their own cultures. I believe that different culture have different omens and 'believes' about turtle. I also would ask the students to role play the characters. Certainly, this story is suitable to be taught in Malaysian schools. There are also other turtle stories which are similar to this story. For instance The Painted Turtle (based on Indian Culture) and Anansi and Turtle (Nigerian folktale)- now being studied in primary schools in Malaysia as a literature component.