Trivia: Aladdin was Chinese

• lucas
  October 1st, 2007 at 1:07 am

  This fact is a little misleading, since there is no “original text” of the thousand and one nights. The tales come from a rich oral tradition, and were only occasionally written down. Western scholars became fascinated by these tales and, finding that most storytellers had versions of the same few hundred tales, set out to collect all 1001 of them. Unsurprisingly, storytellers were happy to oblige and new tales were added. In the oldest manuscripts we have, Aladdin’s tale is not part of the main grouping of stories that are told directly by the character Shahrazade, so it is likely that it comes from a different story tradition.

• Kimota
  October 1st, 2007 at 8:27 am

  Anyway, if I remember correctly, Aladdin wasn’t even the name of the protagonist, but the name of the city where he lived (usually, the character from the story is named “ne’er-do-well” or similar.)

• hc
  October 1st, 2007 at 10:45 am

  How could they forget “Or My Mom Will Shoot”?! Classic Stallone/Getty. Classic!

• Nick Gisburne
  October 1st, 2007 at 11:11 am

  In all the British Christmas pantomime versions of Aladdin, I’ve never seen Aladdin portrayed as anything other than Chinese. So I’m a little curious to know why ‘Aladdin was Chinese’ would be worthy of a story here. It’s in 1001 Nights, but regardless of the Middle Eastern origin of the collection as a whole, the Aladdin story is clearly set in China. Where is the confusion here? Or have I missed a modern re-interpretation of Aladdin in Baghdad?!

• Nick Gisburne
  October 1st, 2007 at 11:19 am

  Ah. Disney. Gotcha. Sad how a cartoon version of an ancient story comes out, and we have to be re-educated in the original form. In my defence, I haven’t seen the movie, but I have seen the pantomime and read the story. I’ll get my coat…

• K
  October 1st, 2007 at 2:09 pm

  Jesus was a Black man.

• Sid Morrison
  October 1st, 2007 at 3:56 pm

  So was his real name “Arradin”?

• tom
  October 1st, 2007 at 6:12 pm

  damn chinese think they invented everything

• ted
  October 1st, 2007 at 9:32 pm

  But Cruella de Vil still wanted his dogs for a fur coat, right?

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