Welcome to CHINESE TALES...
We all love stories, enjoy tales, and appreciate the wisdom behind the legends...
This blog is full of Chinese stories, tales, and myth that sometimes can tease your fantasies and imaginations.
The stories presented here are simple, easy to grasp and fun. They can be your or your children bedtime stories :)
Chinese culture has rich tales, stories, myth, legends that reflect chinese people's ways of thinking, things they value and respect, and morals...
Anyway stories are fun to read...
Please Enjoy....
Both the spider and the silk worm spin silk. One day the spider said, "I admit your silk is better than the silk from the spider, your silk is both yellow and white, dazzling and bright. You use the silk that you spin yourself, to make a beautiful cocoon, then live inside thinking falsely you are kings.
In your little cocoon you wait until the women put you in scalding hot water and peel your silk off strand by strand. Then your beautiful cocoons are all gone. What a shame, though you have the ability to create such beauty, then die because of it, is this not stupid ?"
The silk worm thinking about what the spider said, answered, "Our actions are actually like suicide, but we spin silk so that people can weave beautiful brocades, giving all the peop
le the ability to look beautiful, can you say our labor is a waste? Look at you spiders, all you weave for is to make a trap that will let you eat the cute little bugs that fly in. You don't regret it either but don't you think that is a little cruel?"
Many people think it's such a waste to do things that don't benefit them. These people cannot understand why would one sacrifice for the benefit of others. But on the other hand there are some people who are satisfied knowing that their sacrifices can benefit others. These people don't think their labors are stupid actions since they gain satisfaction not by bettering themselves but others.
So if we are not able to understand one's decision, don't despise, let's just respect it.
Image source:
http://www.infoniac.com/science/scientists-to-use-silk-to-recreate-bone-and-teeth.html
http://www.doitpoms.ac.uk/msm-impee-dev/optimisation-biomaterials/strength_density.php
Story source:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi (Ancient China Fable Stories)
During the Qin Dinasty there was a scholar with the surname Qin who enjoyed collecting antiques. Once he heard something was from a classical period, he had to buy it at any cost. One day, someone brought a beat-up mat to his house and told him, "Have you seen this mat before ? Don't think it's just a beat-up mat because this mat was once used as a seat by Confucius himself !" Qin the Scholar was very happy and immediately traded his land surrounding his house near the city walls for the beat-up mat.
Some time afterwards, another person came to him with a walking stick and said to him, "This walking stick was used by an emperor during the Zhou Dinasty ! It's older than the mat used by Confucius by hundreds of years ! How much are you willing to pay for it ?" Qin the Scholar took the walking stick into his hands and couldn't resist buying it. Gritting his teeth, he took out all his valuables from his house and traded it for the walking stick.
Not long afterwards, yet another person came to him with an old bowl and said to him, "Compared to this old bowl I have here, your mat and your walking stick can't even be considered antiques. This old bowl was made during the Xia Dinasty, and everyone knows that the Xia Dinasty preceded the Zhou by hundreds of years !" So Qin the Scholar had no choice but to trade the very house he lived in for the antique bowl. Qin the Scholar had nothing to his name but three antiques.
So everyday with his mat once used by Confucius draped over his shoulders, leaning on the Zhou emperor's walking stick with the Xia dinasty bowl in his hand he begged for food from passerby along the intersection.
I think the story sounds familiar to us in nowadays. There are many people who cannot keep a good balance between enjoying life (spending their finances on things they love) and managing their finances wisely.
What we realize from the story is when Qin the Scholar started to spend his money on the first antique, the following antique sellers came to him and offering more antiques.
This is the reality that we face nowadays. We are being offered continually and consistently from marketers around the world by email, mail, brochures, credit cards companies, and other medias for items that we know we love to buy. Because these marketers have learned our shopping behaviors and put us in his well designed database to keep track of our interests. I don't think that's a wrong thing to do. It's just the game we play in this world, we are being teased and tempted everyday to spend money into their pockets. Are we wise enough or end up like Qin the Scholar ?
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
Once there was a fellow walking along a road. Suddenly he heard a faint cry. He looked around but saw nothing. Thinking he heard nothing, he continued to walk. Again he heard the faint cry. This time the call was nearby. He searched high and low, and found the sound was coming out of a little fish lying in a drying pond. His mouth gurgling. That person looked at the fish strangely and asked,
"Was that you who was just calling me ? Was it you needing my help ? "
The small fish looking pleading at the man gasping and breathless said, "Please save me quickly, I am dying, I need water. I am not a normal fish, rather I am the eastern sea dragon's official. Please give me a little water." That person hearing this hurriedly nodded his head and said,
"I understand, I will immediately go to the south and let the southern king redirect a river to here so that you can swim and return to the eastern sea." The fish angrily cried out, "Can a fish live out of water ? I am only in need of a little water. Your idea is pointless. I think that the next time you see me will be in a shop that sells dried fish. "
The story tells us to reconsider solutions that we usually propose to solve real life problems. Sometimes we take our time too much to find the most ideal solution, while what the problem really needs is time critical solution.
We must always aware that many times in our lives we don't need the best solution but some quick fixes for the current situation to prevent it of becoming worse. Only until then, we have much more time to think and find the ideal solution.
Reference:Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan GushiImage source:http://www.combat-fishing.com
Zengzi was one of Confucius' most outstanding students. Zengzi is a very trustworthy person. One day his wife was going to the market to buy some things when their child began to cry following her for he wanted to go with his mother. The mother in order to calm the child said, "Hush, I'll be back soon and when I get home if you listen to mummy, I will kill a pig for you." When she returned, Zengzi seized the pig, and prepared to kill it. The mother asked, "What are you doing! I was only consoling the child, don't take it for real."
Zengzi turned to his wife and said, "You promised the child that after returning from the market you would. Now you have to keep that promise. The child is small but he has a mind, and will imitate you. Today we must kill a pig otherwise we will indirectly teach him how to cheat people. And if he understands that you are cheating him he will never trust you again. How terrible a consequence, we have to teach him the right way."
After the words, his wife lowered her head and then Zengzi raised the knife and killed the pig. He was the child's first teacher.
I think the interesting part of this story is the reason why Zengzi killed the pig. He killed it to avoid the terrible consequence, he realized how such example could lead his child into imitating the cheating behaviour. He also realized that trust is the most important thing in his leadership towards his child. He didn't want his child to stop trusting his parents. I believe you've already heard it from somewhere, "A child is not a good listener, he/she is a good imitator."
One of the biggest secrets to leadership success is Leading by Examples. If a leader lives his words, he does what he says. Then his disciples/students/followers will highly appreciate their leader. The true respect are borned from appreciations while false respect are borned from fear. And when all the students have the right kind of respect towards their leader, it will be the highway to a successful leadership.
Once there was an elephant, who had been brought up from the south. It incited the curiosity of the crowds, who all came to see the elephant. The crowd was in a small alley arguing as to what this animal was when some blind people heard of the elephant. They wished they could see what type of animal the elephant was, but knew that they could only use their hands to feel.
The first blind man felt the long tusk, excitedly he shouted, "I know what it is, it's a radish, a long long radish, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom." Another blind man feeling the elephant's leg said, "This elephant, how can it be a radish? I feel the roughness of the texture and its width, it obviously is a column." The third blind man felt the elephant's body and said, "How can you say it's a column? It obviously is a wall. The fourth man feeling the elephant's tail hurriedly said, "You are joking, the elephant is so soft, how can it be a wall? Obviously it is a long length of string.
These four people argued for half a day, and none of them could convince the others that his interpretation was the correct one. When we observe a new issue, sometimes we are too focused on some specific parts of the issue and then we quickly jump into conclusions. If we do such thing, we are surely risking ourselves to jump into wrong conclusions. So what we need to do is finding the whole picture of the issue while picking some specific parts that need to be observed in greater details. If we do this we'll avoid two of the extremes.
One extreme is we become too broad-view minded, we only know things on the surface we don't dive into details. This way we are risking ourselves into taking ineffective, inefficient, and careless actions.
The other extreme is we are diving too deep on certain specific parts, while ignoring other parts that perhaps can help and ease our ways in understanding and solving the issue.
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
Image source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Blind_monks_examining_an_elephant.jpg
Once a man took some medicine that could apparently prevent death to the King of the Chu Kingdom. The official at the entrance of the palace took the medicine inside the palace but was stopped along the way by one of the king's personal guards. The guard asked the official, "What are you carrying ?" "Death preventing medicine," the official replied, "You eat it and you won't die." The guard immediately grabbed and swallowed the medicine in one gulp.
When the king heard of this he was furious, and sent for the guard. The guard come before the king and tried to plea his case. "Since a stranger offered this antideath medicine, if I had of died, when I ate the medicine, then it would have shown that it was actually an attemtp to poison you. If you kill me, it shows everyone that you are prepared to be fooled. You should release me for your reputation as a benevolent and wise king." The king thought there was some truth to his words and didn't kill him.
When someone offers or claims something, he or she must have certain motives. It could be good and sincere motives, but it can also turn out to be bad or negative motives. We should be aware to validate those motives, especially when he claims something that we know we want to believe. Validation is very important to prevent us being trapped into deceptions and the simplest form of validation is to validate his claims by putting his statements into action and observe the result.
In ancient times there was a king who wished to own a fast horse. He sent many men to inquire about such horse and offered to pay up to a thousand gold pieces for the horse. Three years passed, and the men who were sent out to buy those horses came back. But there was no horse bought. The king was worried and didn't know what to do. This time the king's lesser official said, "Let me go and search for one of these fleet footed horses."
When he finally found one, it had just died. The lesser official still paid five hundred gold pieces for the head of the horse. He took it back to the king. The king was furious. "I wanted a live one! What is the use of the head of a dead horse? You waste my five hundred gold pieces." The official calmly answered, "Dead or alive even though it cost five hundred gold pieces. Now the whole world knows that you sincerely are looking for a horse of this quality." So before long a real fleet footed horse was brought to the palace and offered for sale and then after less than one year, three more had been reached to the palace.
The wisdom behind this tale is if you want to reach or find or gain something that you need help from others to achieve it, sometimes it's not enough just to let others know about our desires. We need to make them feel that we really really want that thing, if they can feel in their hearts that we sincerely and earnestly pursuit those things, they'll be moved by our sincerity and persistence and begin to sincerely help us. Sometimes we want to help someone but when we see that he doesn't show a strong will to help himself that's very discouraging. This wisdom is very applicable in many areas of our lives.
Find more attractive Chinese Tales :
Image source:
http://freedailyhoroscopeblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/horse-chinese-horoscope-2008.html
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
There once was a girl who lived in the Qi Kingdom. She was at marriageable age. As time went on, more potential suitors were proposing to her. One day two different men went to her house to propose. The first man was from the Eastern family. The Eastern family was very wealthy but ugly, and the second man was from the Western family, and was handsome but very poor.
Thus arose a problem, which family, and which man. Her parents discussed it all day and at length they realized the problem should also have her opinion. Hearing her parent's explanation, she was silent. Her parents realizing how difficult this decision would be said, "If you are embarrassed to speak your thoughts you may point using your hand." Tentatively the girl raised her right hand indicating the Eastern family, suddenly she also raised her left indicating the Western household. Her parents were bemused, "What ? You can't marry both of them." "No," she replied, "I was going to eat at the Eastern household and sleep at the Western family."
Beyond this story, we see that in our lives we sometimes face difficult choices and we live in a dilemma. When that kind of event arises we should think about our priorities, which choices that really fit our passions, desires, and moral values. And we must be very well determined when making our decisions, we must not regret and live a full life and awareness walking on those decisions.
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
Once a person lost something, and though a couple of suspicious people were taken to the local officer, there wasn't one person who would admint guilt. So the officer had a method of finding out the guilty one. In the back he claimed he had a clock that could sense if a thief placed his hand on the clock it would chime.
So he made all of the suspects one by one enter the back room and touch the clock. If you hadn't stolen anything, the
clock wouldn't chime. As they came out the officer inspected their hands and finally grabbed one of the people and yelled,
"It was he who stole your thing." The culprit fainted, paralyzed in fear, and everyone was shocked and asked the officer how he knew. The officer with a smile, said that on the top of the clock he painted a layer of ink. The culprit feared touching the clock and therefore had clean hands.
Someone who does bad things often in his/her hearts feel the most guilt. From this guilty feeling arises fear. And fear will lead him to cover his crime. If we can rise up the fear and use it as a decoy then we can reveal the truth out of him.
Images sources:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/12/burglar.jpg
http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/shop2007/00_030.jpg
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
In ancient times, there was a famous general. He shot arrows with such accuracy that at the time no one was able to better him. He himself believed that he was fabulous. One day he was at the archery field during a demonstration. When he shot the gallery would from time to time erupt into applause, but looking around he discovered that two old people selling oil to the people next to the fields were not clapping.
Only with a slight nod of their heads did they acknowledge his shots. Unhappily he walked up to the old couple and asked, "It seems you understand archery, what do you think about my archer ?" The old people answered, "We don't understand archery, we only watch." Infuriated the general asked, "If you don't understand archery, why don't you applaud ?" The old man slowly answered, "It's because of the oil that I sell."
He produced a bottle and placed it on the ground, then placing a copper coin on the mouth of the bottle, and using a spoon poured the oil into the bottle through the tiny hole in the coin. He spilled not a drop and all the people ar
ound couldn't help but applaud, and the old man modestly said, "Actually it is only practice."
Many times we are amazed by how skillful someone in doing his/her performance, work and productivity. But what we don't realize is that it takes lots of time, learning experiences, failures, and struggles to produce such maximum performance.
And when we achieve such level we shouldn't be boastful and live in pride. Since we realize that almost anyone can do what we do if they would go through what we have been through.
Chinese tales are fun to read, they provide self-improvement and contemplative stories. Find out more in the 3 links I recommend:
Images sources:http://www.fitzdecarts.com/daniel_achtermeier_pottery.htm
http://www.chinajointventures.com/legalities-an-joint-ventures-china.html
http://www.reappropriate.com/aaheroes/dc.php
Reference:
Zhongguo Gudai Yuyan Gushi
