Once upon a time, there lived a fisherman in a remote seaside village. After losing his wife, he lived alone with his young son. The fisherman spent most of his time out at sea, fishing, and his son was always left alone at home. As expected, the young boy felt lonely and bored all day, and the father took pity on him. The fisherman then decided to remarry to create a family for his lonely son.

One day, the fisherman brought home a woman and introduced her to his son as a stepmother. The woman had her own son, so they became a family of four. The fisherman’s son was very happy to have a mother and a brother as well. He thought he wouldn’t be lonely again even when his father went out to the sea. Unfortunately, the stepmother didn’t think that way. She hated the fisherman’s son, who was the same age as her own. She was nice to the son from the fisherman’s first marriage in front of her husband. But when he was not at home, she mistreated the first son and only favored her own son. She took everything nice from the first son and gave it to her son. Her discrimination became more severe, as her husband was often away from home, fishing for days or weeks at a time. The evil stepmother even gave delicious, white rice to her son, while giving grain rice with beans to the first son. At the time, white rice was a rarity, which was only served on special occasions. Whole grain rice with beans, on the other hand, was unsavory and hard to digest.

One day, when the fisherman was at home, the first son told his father what had happened while the father wasn’t there. In fact, the boy had always endured the harsh treatment by his stepmother but he couldn’t stand it any longer. After hearing the story, the father just remained silent. After a moment, he asked his son if he could beat his stepbrother in wrestling. The boy said yes. That night, the father let the two sons have a bout of wrestling. As the boy said, the first son easily won the game. The father then shouted, “Oh, you’re as strong as a bull. You must have eaten a lot of rice with beans.”

The stepmother had never heard of the story like that. She asked her husband if beans would make a person strong. The fisherman answered, “Of course. Even a weak bull can spring to its feet after eating a sack of beans. Don’t you know that?”

The next day, the fisherman, as always, went out to the sea to fish. From that day on, the stepmother fed her son rice with beans, and gave white rice to the first son instead. She regretted not having done it the other way around. She came to believe that her son would be much stronger than the first son. When the father returned home, he heard that his son had eaten white rice only, while the stepmother’s son ate rice with beans. Now, the father told his son to lose the next wrestling game on purpose.

The fisherman let the two boys wrestle with each other again. This time around, the first son was defeated by the second son. Of course, the first son did exactly what he had been told by his father. The father pretended to be surprised and said to his son, “I bet you’ve eaten white rice only. How can you lose the game so helplessly?” With these words, he patted the stepmother’s son on the back to praise him, “Oh, you’re such a strong boy. I’m very proud of you.” So, the bad, foolish stepmother continued to give the delicious white rice to the first son and the coarse grain rice with beans to her own son.