Wise Old Man, Why Not Wise Old Woman?

There are many representations of Asian wise old men in the media such karate masters or wise old men that talk as if they were fortune cookies. But where are the Asian wise old women? In the story The Wise Old Woman by Yushiko Uchida there is a farmer and his elderly mother, she has reached and age that a young lord Higa has deemed too old to be any use. As the farmer takes his elder mother to a mountains so she can die alone, on the she takes twigs of branches to mark the way the son should go after he has abandon her in the mountains, but after seeing this the farmer had second though and decides to hide his mother in a secrete cave he dug under his house. Two years after the farmer hid his elderly under his home the young ruler Higa sent three warriors to warn the town that they have three days and night to solve three impossible riddles or there town would be wiped out. The farmer struggles to solve the riddle and even get the wisest men in his town but no one is able to solve it , until the farmer gives it to his elder mother. The farmer gives the answers to the lord Hida and tells him the truth, that his mother solved and no one in there town could do it. Lord Hida was amazed and disbands his policy that the elderly had to have to die in the mountains.

I fell that this story is a correct representation of an Asian wise old lady because old people both male and female have been through a lot in their life to get to the age they are in. They know things that younger generation do not know or understand.  Sure this can be related to every culture but it is a better representation than what Asian wise old man represents a masters or wise old men that talk as if they were fortune cookies.

Work cited

Uchida, Yoshiko. The Wise Old Woman. 1994. 1-32. Print. <http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/byrnes-famous/WOMAN.HTM>.