A Thousand and One Chinese Nights

Good evening from Beijing. As you may or may not know, when the Tseng family took me in it was on the basis that I would teach them English for one hour each day. Well, there hadn't really been much teaching going on... Until tonight that is. Dr. Tseng came up with the idea to tell stories instead of having regular "class." So today while everyone was at work or school, I translated one of Juicy's storybooks into English thinking I could use this for my story that night. Well as it turns out, they would be telling stories in English and I would be telling them in Chinese. So that evening after dinner, we sat around the living room and listened to each other tell a story while changing minor errors in grammar or syntax. What I've noticied is a fairly common problem Chinese people have is differentiating between "he" and "she." In Chinese both words are pronounced exactly the same but written differently. So sometimes they will assign the masculine "he" when referring to a female. I've never heard it the otherway around though. Another common error is that they might forget to turn verbs or nouns into adjectives or adverbs. For example, they might say the floor is slip, instead of slippery. But when you consider how vastly different English and Chinese are, an error like this is really quite minor. As they keep telling me, as long as you can make the meaning clear you're doing alright. Anyway, there we sat, three adults, with childrens' books in hand painfully translating them. Dr. Tseng went first and recounted the story of a girl who loved flying kites but was scolded by the village's matchmaker. Actually it was a story staring Mulan, but not the real Mulan. It was the Disney fabricated one. Afterwards, Mrs. Tseng entertained with the tale about a frog who fell in love with a duck. And I couldn't help but chuckled at what a mix between a frog and a duck would be called. Then it came to be my turn. Not having an English book in front of me to translate into Mandarin, I had to think up a story. I tried to think of an American story, or one that they would not have heard before. Then I remembered my favorite story from my childhood. I am speaking, of course, about The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings. So there I sat, retelling my favorite story to a whole new audience, who to my surprise enjoyed my rendition in broken Mandarin. The exercise proved to be quite educational. I only have one problem, I don't that many stories! Any suggestions?