A Comparative Study Of Thai Story "the Golden Conch" And Xishuangbanna Dai Story "a Person With A Cicada Face"

The Dai people and Thai people live across both China and Thailand and spreadwidely throughout Southeast Asia. Thailand and Xishuangbanna both belong to thecultural circle of Hinayana, their folk literatures share a cultural matrix, and are bothbaptized by Buddhist culture. Among subgroups of Dai and Thai peoples, manymythology texts are shared with each other and inherited together.Thai folk story The Golden Conch and Xishuangbanna Dai story A Person witha Cicada Face both come from the Sangtong Jataka in Chiang Mai Buddhistliterature Fifty Jataka Stories. The Sangtong Jataka is a folk story which graduallyemerged when Himalaya was introduced into the areas of the Dai and Thai people inSoutheast Asia and Buddhist literature widely spread. Under the influence of differentsocial environment, the two folk stories, with the same source but different texts,went through the process of localization and nationalization. A comparative studyshows the variation of the two Jataka stories in the process of spread among twocountries and areas and the Dai and Thai peoples. The study of the two folk storiesalso gives us insight into national culture, religious beliefs and customs in folk storiesand reflects the spirit thread, cultural trend, national psychology and nationalcharacters of the two peoples across nations but with the same origin under theinfluence of Himalaya.This paper consists of five parts. The first part is introduction. Chapter one is asummary of spread and plots of Thai folk story The Golden Conch andXishuangbanna Dai story A Person with a Cicada Face. Chapter Two is acomparative study of the two stories. Chapter Three is about the cultural connotationincluded in the two stories and their influence. The last part is conclusion on theanalysis of the differences and similarities in the two stories.By means of a comparative study of Thai folk story The Golden Conch andXishuangbanna Dai story A Person with a Cicada Face, this paper explores folkcustoms and cultural connotation and analyzes the Buddhist thoughts, values andteachings in the stories from three aspects--contents and themes, plots and structures and motif in the story.