A classic American short story adapted to a Chinese context
“The Ransom of Red Chief” 《红猴的价格》is Mandarin Companion’s adaptation of one of O. Henry’s most famous short stories. I remember reading this story in junior high school and even seeing a movie adaptation of this story. So, it is no surprise that Mandarin Companion took this well known story for one of their graded readers.
“The Ransom of Red Chief” 《红猴的价格》replaces Johnny (aka. “Red Chief”) with a naughty Chinese boy who is only known as 红猴 (Hóng Hóu, “Red Monkey”). The during time period of the original story, playing “cowboys and Indians” was more acceptable than in modern times Mandarin Companion looked for a more suitable replacement.
That replacement, 红猴 is itself an adaption of红猴, the Monkey King from “Journey to the West”. This adaptation is set in Shanxi province in the 1990s.
Two men, 林哥 and 老妈 have their sights set on the son of a rich man named 高先生。 They plan on kidnapping his son, demanding 3000 kuai, and then taking their proceeds to start a business in Xi’an. They should have done a better job of casing their target, because no one in the village likes 红猴 because he causes so much trouble.
As in the original short story,高先生 refuses to pay the ransom and even demands that林哥 and 老妈 pay him, 500 kuai to get the very naughty红猴 off of their hands.
A Level One Graded Reader
“The Ransom of Red Chief” 《红猴的价格》is a level one graded reader, so it is a great book to read for new Chinese learners. It assumes about 300 basic Chinese readers, which is within the grasp of an student with about one year of college level Chinese under their belt. About 100 additional words are introduced within the text and repeated enough times that picking up these words seems natural.
I’m comfortable with more difficult books, so I found reading this book to be quite easy, not to mention enjoyable. That’s part of the beauty of extensive reading. The more you read graded readers, the better you get. Practice! Practice! Practice!
Features of “The Ransom of Red Chief” 《红猴的价格》
In addition to assuming 300 fundamental Chinese characters, Mandarin Companion books assume a grasp of basic grammar concepts. Appendix B has a chapter-by-chapter listing of those grammar points. But you can find those same grammar points enumerated at AllSetLearning’s Grammar Chinese Wiki. (AllSetLearning is the company that publishes Mandarin Companion books).
Before I read this book, I went to the key word list in the appendix and used my Plecco app’s optical character recognition feature to build a list of flashcards. Then before I starting reading, I reviewed the list a couple of times. This will help you when you read the story.
Final Thoughts
If you want a pleasant read that will help strengthen your knowledge of Chinese, by all means, get a copy of “The Ransom of Red Chief” 《红猴的价格》 . I hope Mandarin Companion keeps publishing such good quality graded readers, and hopefully even introduce some level 3 books!
