Mei Xia perches in a half-lotus on the nearby table, claps her hands together three times, and says: "I give to you a story!"

And the audience claps three times in return, and replies, "We accept your story!"

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Once upon a time, there was an old bamboo cutter. One day he found a glimmering bamboo stalk on a mountain. When he cut the bamboo, a small girl baby came out. He took the baby to his wife, who was overjoyed at the beautiful child. They named her Kaguya, and brought her up as their own daughter.

Kaguya grew at a surprising speed, and became a exquisite girl of four feet tall in less than a year. So graceful was her beauty that many noble princes traveled to meet her. Five of the, proposed marriage, but Kayuga was cautious.

She set for her five suitors a task, requesting each of the candidate to bring her an legendary treasure, such as an orb of a dragon, or the skin of a fire-mouse. While the suitors set off bravely, the tasks she set were nearly impossible.

One lost his life in his quest. One came back with a faked treasure, but was quickly exposed. Others simply failed. So no one could marry with her. Intrigued by this lovely maiden no one could win, the emperor proposed marriage as well. Surely he was more than good enough for any woman. But he would not complete her tasks, and so, to his great surprise, she rejected him too.

Several years pased. The bamboo cutter now noticed that his daughter seemed melancholy when she saw the moon. When he asked her about this, she kept silent. Every night she watched the skies and sighed, and every night he asked.

At last, Kayuga told him, "You have been my earthly father, and I cherish you and my mother, but I am truly the child of the Moon, and my sisters will come to take me home on the next full moon night."

The bamboo cutter and his wife were shocked, and did not want to let their beautiful daughter leave, so they decided to keep her from her moon sisters. They sent word to the emperor, who had not given up on the idea that she should marry him, and he sent a full army to guard the cutter's house.

On the full moon night, just as she had predicted, a carriage descended from the moon to Kayuga's house. The emperor's archers tried to shoot it down but in vain. The emperor's soldiers tried to attack, but were held immobile by the strange force of the moonlight.

Her lunar sisters embraced Kaguya, and helped her into the carriage to ride back to the moon. Kayuga cried then, saying thanks and good-byes to the bamboo cutter and his wife, who had been true parents to her. The old couple wept as well, and begged her to stay with them. So the moonlight shone, very brightly, on the cutter and his wife, and Kayuga whispered a promise in their ears.

Then she returned with her sisters to the moon, where the old couple, who were now made immortal by the moonlight, could watch her looking down on them. And every month, for those days when the moon does not show in the sky, Kayuga comes to visit her parents, just as she promised.