4th meeting

Our today's story - "A Necklace of Water Drops" from "The Talking Tree and Other Stories" by David McRobbie

We were happy to get together for yet another book club meeting. Today, Umm Uzair started out by asking us, if we like to receive gifts. Only a few hands went up, because this question had brought some confusion - Uzair said that Muslims should not receive gifts. Umm Uzair realized, what he had in mind – he was thinking that as Muslims, we should not receive gifts on our birthdays, because we don’t celebrate birthdays. However, having gifts on other occasions is fine. Isa clarified that we don’t celebrate birthdays, because our Prophet (saw) didn’t do it – thus, we also should not do it, because we should follow his example in all things.

Then Umm Uzair asked us about the favourite gifts that we’ve had. Vajih’s favourite one was M&M’s. Hiba also went for the sweets – her favourite one was ice-cream. Hafsa liked her blue bouncy ball. Muadh liked his sword. Uzair liked his robot-toy. But Isa surprised us all – he said that he liked all the gifts that were given to him, Alhamdulillah. And he is right – we should be happy about even the smallest gifts that people give us, because they are given with good intention of the giver.

“Would you like to have a gift every day?” was a question that immediately put smiles on our faces. But then, as we thought about it more, we realized that it would mean over 300 gifts per year, over 600 gifts in two years and nearly a 1000 gifts in 3 years!!! Where would we keep all of them? Would we be able to play with all of them?

With these thoughts in mind, we started reading our today’s story “A Necklace of Water Drops”. It was about a princess in China, who loved to receive gifts. She had so many gifts, that in her father’s palace, she had whole rooms filled with them. Plus, she insisted on having a birthday every week, so that her father would give her a birthday gift every week. Once, while looking at how water drops shine in bright sunshine, princess got an idea of a very special gift she would like to have - a necklace of water drops! Needless to say, no jeweler in the whole emperor’s kingdom could make it for her, and all of them were thrown in prison. Then, one day a beggar came to palace and said he had heard of the emperor’s problem. He said he would make the necklace, if princess would bring for him the drops of water. Princess happily rushed to the fountain to bring the drops but soon realized that it is impossible to bring them, just as it was impossible to make a necklace of water drops. The beggar called the princess a silly girl and the king also realized that he had been silly requesting the jewelers to make such a necklace. So the jewelers were released, the princess gave away all her gifts to the people of China, and the emperor stopped giving gifts to the princess.

Later, after finishing the story, Vajih correctly noted that if we would freeze these drops of water, then we could make necklaces out of them. The others, though, said that in old times in China nobody had fridges or freezers - that's why the jeweler's couldn't turn water into ice.

Having read about this princess in China, we made a craft related to China – a Chinese paper lantern. You can make one yourself, by following the directions described here: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesenewyear/lantern/ When our lanterns were ready, we thought it would be good to send them as gifts to that princess in China. :)

These and other types of paper lanterns are typical celebration decorations in China. They are especially popular during the Chinese festival dedicated to the starting of the new lunar year. Chinese people place a light-bulbs inside the lanterns, which make them shine in different colours, once it gets dark outside. Here in the pictures below, you can see some more types of Chinese paper lanterns. Some of them have the bulbs inside!