Tikki Tikki Tembo
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Tikki Tikki Tembo is a retelling of an old Chinese folktale written by Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent. The story is about a family with two sons, in which the first-born and honoured son gets a long name, and the other son gets a short name (by tradition). Questions have arisen as to the origins and validity of the story, as this retelling (and others) come severely wrong in some aspects of Chinese culture. The first born son's full name is Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo which, according to the story, means "the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world" but is actually just gibberish. The second son's name is Chang which means "little or nothing" in the story, but not in actual Chinese. Also, the idea that first-born sons used to get long names and other children hardly any, is not an accurate portrayal of the culture. Some suggest it is actually a take-off on a Japanese story, but still does not accurately reflect the culture.
It's a book aimed at school children from Kindergarten to Grade 2
Other versions of the name are: Rikki tikki instead of Tikki tikki (not to be confused with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) and Nikki Nikki Tembo-No So Rembo-Oo Ma Moochi-Gamma Gamma Goochi. All of these names are nonsense in Chinese.
[edit] The Story
Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo falls into a well, and because of his long name it takes everyone a very long time to realize who is in the well. Because of this he is in the well for too long, (in some versions of the story he drowns) before he is pulled up from the bottom. He takes a long time to recover and doesn't ever fully recover. This prompts the families to name their children shorter names in order to avoid such problems. This is the archetype of the story, since there are a great number of variations that are found.
