Chinese Fables

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  The Practical Bride

  The Wrong Audience

  Stealing the Bell

  Sakyamuni and Lao-Tse

  The Same Sickness

  “Everybody’s Talking About It!”

  The Vigilant Sentry

  Kwan-Yin, the Goddess of Mercy

  The King of Beasts

  A Small Gift

  Cooking the Duck

  What’s in a Name?

  The Same Difference

  Scaring the Tigers

  The Dragon Slayer

  No Takers

  The Egg

  Welcome Guests

  A Change of Fashion

  Acknowledgments

  I thank my family and friends for their help and encouragement in bringing this collection of stories to publication: Wallace W. Allen, Lizabeth G. Ball,

  Susan Miho Nunes, Gerald and Pauline Gifford, Jean S. Matsumura, Richard Sisler, and David Swartz.

  —Shiho S. Nunes

  To Father, omniscient and omnipresent, for whom nothing is impossible.

  —Lak-Khee Tay-Audouard

  Preface

  Who doesn’t remember “The Tortoise and the Hare” or “The Lion and the Mouse” or “Belling the Cat,” and recall the lessons these simple stories teach? Fables are among the stories we hear first and remember longest.

  If you went to Sunday school, you will have heard the “Parable of the Server” and the “Parable of the Talents.” A parable, like the fable, conveys some truth or moral lesson, but it does so indirectly by using a comparison of some kind. The New Testament of the Bible teaches many lessons through the use of such comparisons.

  Wherever they came from, whatever their source—Greek, Hindu, European, Asian—these tales, with their moral teachings and ageless wisdom, are an important part of our literary heritage.

  In China, cautionary tales, like fables and parables, have a long and illustrious history. They are part of a class of works called yu-yen, writings with an underlying—a second—meaning. Yu-yen also include allegories, metaphors and anecdotes. These works are very old. China’s golden age of fable was in the fourth and third centuries BCE, but some yu-yen go back even further. The more recent ones were written between 1644 and 1911. These writings were not accessible, however, until Chinese and European scholars and folklorists collected, translated and published them in modern form.

  From three such collections Wolfram Eberhard, an American folklorist, abstracted and cataloged five hundred tales in his Chinese Fables and Parables, a monograph on Asian folklore and social life. The cataloged entries are brief, giving only the story line in two or three sentences, rarely more. An unmistakable thread of humor runs through many of them. Devoid of detail, the entries cry for invention.

  And invent I did with the nineteen entries I selected to expand into stories. I have taken liberties, I’m sure, but tried to remain true to each story’s original intent as nearly as I could interpret it. As fables and parables the world over have always done, these Chinese tales illustrate both the wisdom and foolishness of ordinary folk.

  The Practical Bride

  A bride was being borne in a sedan chair from her father’s house to herbridegroom’s home in the next village. Four porters in jackets of identical color and design carried the gaily decorated chair. Small bells tied to the corners of the canopy kept merry time with the porters’ gait as they jogged along. The tapestry hangings over the canopy roof and sides concealed the passenger within, but everyone knew that a bride was being taken to her new home. The villagers stood outside their doors, waving and calling out well-wishes and farewells as the chair passed by.

  Midway to the next village, a loud rrriiippp!!! interrupted the merry tinkling of the bells. CRASH! THUD! The chair fell to the road, taking with it the silken cushion and the bride, and leaving the porters holding a pair of poles with an empty canopy and dangling shreds of rotten rope. The bride picked herself up carefully. Not a single ornament of her elaborate headdress was out of place. She moved to the side of the road to await repairs. But no repairs began, only a chorus of complaints and blame.

  “Did you check the chair before we started?”

  “Nobody told me to!”

  “It was bound to break! See how cheaply it’s put together!”

  “Master should have bought a better chair!”

  “And he should have sent two chairs as a precaution!”

  “Well, what can we do? We have no tools; we have no cord.”

  “You run and tell Master to send another chair. We’ll wait here.”

  “But it will be dark by the time I get back!”

  “And if it rains, where can we go for shelter?”

  “Oh! What’s to be done!?”

  Out of patience, the bride took charge. She stepped between the poles where the chair had been and ordered the porters to take their places. “Start jogging!” she said firmly. Hidden under the canopy hangings, she kept pace with them. The bells resumed their merry tinkling.

  In this fashion the bride jogged to her new home, arriving in state and on time, with every hair ornament in place, and none of the guests the wiser.

  The Wrong Audience

  Kung-Ming I was an accomplished musician on the ch’in, the seven-string zither, the Chinese scholar’s instrument. Excellent though he was, he had one great failing: he didn’t care a snapped string about his audience and paid no attention to the response of the audience who came to hear him play.

  Kung-Ming had studied the instrument in the old-school belief that it is the way to purity and harmony with the universe. To Kung-Ming playing the ch’in was meditation: he withdrew into himself, thought only lofty thoughts, and cared nothing about the effects of his music on his listeners. To enhance his purity, he often played the ch’in in a secluded pavilion or on the banks of an icy mountain stream. He best liked playing alone under a full moon on a hillside overlooking the town.

  One day Kung-Ming came upon a meadow bright with sunshine and wildflowers and a brown cow grazing on clover. The scene was so sunny and peaceful that Kung-Ming was moved to bring out his ch’in, to celebrate the meadow, the sun, the brown cow. He plucked from the strings a run of sound so joyous it made his own heart sing.

  The sun shone on, the meadow bloomed, the cow grazed on and did not even lift his head.

  Slightly annoyed, Kung-Ming produced a series of trills and ripples like the warbling of songbirds and the burbling of brooks, sounds so beautiful he felt himself almost melt away to become one with the meadow, the hillside, the brook, the brown cow.

  The sun shone on, the brook burbled on, and the brown cow continued grazing, though she twitched an ear and flicked her tail at the flies on her back.

  Thoroughly annoyed, Kung-Ming struck two loud, discordant notes—Twannnggg!! Zzzinnnggg!!

  “Mooooo!” lowed the cow, lifting her head to look mournfully at Kung-Ming before going back to munching grass.

  “Verily I have the wrong audience,” said Kung-Ming to himself. He left the meadow a wiser musician, with an awakened appreciation of those who came to hear his music.

  Stealing the Bell

  When finally the city fell to its besiegers,the great House of Fan was vacated and left to looters. Master and servants packed what they could carry, buried the gold and fled.

  Then the mobs came. Ordinarily law-abiding, the townsmen turned into rampaging hordes that emptied the abandoned mansion of everything: carved tables and chairs, inlaid screens and chests, rich carpets and tapestries, priceless garments, porcelains and ivories, every wok and kettle in the kitchens.

  An outburst of plunder and looting seized the city until a proclamation from the new author
ities halted the frenzy. Infractions, however minor, would be punishable by death. Quiet settled on the city.

  Among the servants of the House of Fan was one Ch’in, a poor man always at the bottom of the domestic scale. He did not flee the city with his master but sneaked away to join the pillaging mobs. He saw a chance to start his fortune.

  When Ch’in returned to the House of Fan, he saw the front gate fallen, the doors pried open, the house emptied. Nothing of value remained. But in a disused storeroom behind the empty tool house, Ch’in found to his joy a large bronze bell. It was so big his arms could barely encircle it, and it was too heavy for him to carry.

  Poor Ch’in was torn with indecision. Here was the only thing of value left in the great House of Fan. Should he abandon it? Of course not_he had found it! Should he ask his wife’s brothers to help him? But they were a greedy lot, sure to demand more than their fair share. Should he borrow a cart? But this would mean traveling the streets, and discovery would mean death.

  A brilliant thought slowly lit up his eyes. He would break up the bell into several pieces that could be secretly carried away piece by piece. Its value as a bell would be lost, but there would be the value of the metal. Of course!

  Ch’in returned to the House late that afternoon with a sledgehammer he had taken from one of his wife’s brothers, and a bundle of rags for wrapping the pieces of bronze. Eagerly he set about his task of breaking up the bell.

  BBBOOONNNGGGGG!!!!!

  The first strike was so loud Ch’in nearly jumped out of his skin. He dropped the sledgehammer and wrapped his arms around the bell to silence it. “This will never do!” he thought. People will hear the bell and I will be discovered. He looked about frantically for something to muffle the sound. His eyes fell on the bundle of rags he had brought. Hastily ripping one into pieces, he stuffed up his ears. For good measure he tied a strip around his head to keep the plugs in place.

  Ch’in resumed breaking up the bell, confident the noise was now too muted to be heard beyond the walls.

  Sakyamuni and Lao—Tse

  A painted statue of Sakyamuni sat next to a statue of Lao-Tse on a shelf in a humble mountain temple off the beaten track. As you know, Sakyamuni is one of the several names of Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. And Lao-Tse is the philosopher who founded the way of life called Taoism. Whoever first placed the two statues side by side must not have cared that they should be sitting together on the same shelf. Thus the two sat in intimate comradeship and exchanged many a quiet observation on life and religion and the travelers who stopped at the shrine.

  “A life of the utmost simplicity and naturalness is our universal ideal,” Lao-Tse might murmur. “To follow the Tao is to follow the path of life that leads to self-realization. Is this so different from the Buddhist ideal?”

  “Life is full of suffering,” Sakyamuni might reply. “And suffering can only be ended by enlightenment. One path to enlightenment is to shed earthly desire, and one way to shed earthly desire is to return to a simple life. So really,” Sakyamuni might conclude, “we are not far apart on our basic rules for living.”

  Thus they quietly conversed, never raising their voices, for they sat side by side.

  One day a Buddhist monk strayed from the beaten path and stopped at the small shrine. He frowned to see Sakyamuni and Lao-Tse sharing the same shelf. With a firm hand he moved Sakyamuni to a higher shelf before he began his prayers.

  Not long after, a Taoist monk discovered the shrine. Shaking his head in disapproval, he grasped Sakyamuni unceremoniously by the shoulder and lowered him to his former position on the lower shelf. He then carefully elevated Lao-Tse to the upper shelf.

  From that time on, the shifting of Sakyamuni and Lao-Tse up and down continued. Travelers who found the shrine moved the statues according to their religious beliefs. There was no peace or rest for the two, and now they had to shout to each other to be heard. Conversations became exhausting.

  “Ah me!” Lao-Tse lamented loudly. “See how dirty we’ve become from all the handling! And how unsettled we are. To think that once we sat peacefully together.”

  “Ah yes!” Sakyamuni yelled from the upper shelf. “Stupidity has destroyed our peace.”

  The Same Sickness

  Chang was a retired merchant, not immensely rich, not miserably poor, just somewhere in between. He was eager to provide tangible evidence of his status in the scheme of things, so he filled his house with furniture and bric-a-brac he bought at sales and auctions at prices that pleased his merchant’s soul.

  His latest treasure was a handsome bedstead decorated with carved ivory and mother-of-pearl inlay. Chang could not wait to show it off. Imagine his disappointment when the bed would not fit into his crowded parlor! Reluctantly, Chang had it placed in his sleeping chamber, at the back of his house.

  Whenever visitors were expected, he climbed into bed—a sick man propped up against his new bedstead. Of course, there was always an opportunity to point out the perfections of the ivory and mother-of-pearl inlay. But word spread that Chang was ill and dying, and a stream of visitors gave him almost more occasion than he could handle to show off his treasure. He almost never got out of bed.

  One day Chou, the father-in-law of Chang’s oldest daughter, traveled from the city to see him. Now, Chou was a modest man, but he did have one vanity: he loved gay, multi-colored socks and loved even more to display them. He always wore his trousers high to expose a bit of color beneath the cuffs; and when he sat, he hitched them up—not so much to prevent bagging at the knees but to show his socks to best advantage.

  “Well, In-Law,” said Chou as he sat down beside Chang’s bed, arranging the knees of his pants, “for a sick man you look mighty good—bright eyes, lots of color, no lost flesh. What ails you? What does the doctor say?”

  “I really don’t know.” Chang tried to look as sick as possible. “I have good days and bad days.”

  Chou’s attention had wandered a bit, for he suddenly remarked, “Hmmm—a new bed.”

  Chang sat up, visibly brightened, and threw back his covers. “Never mind the state of my health, Chou,” he pronounced. “I’ll live. Look, I want to show you my new bed!” He threw aside the pillows to reveal the panel of ivory and mother-of-pearl inlay. “Look at that workmanship! Isn’t it superb?”

  Chou burst into laughter and swung his gaily-colored stocking feet onto the bed. “You know, In-Law,” he gasped, “I think you and I have the same sickness!”

  Everybody's Talking About It!

  Mao K’ung loved gossip. He loved even better the art of embroidering the stories he heard. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to add a fancy stitch or two to give a story color and novelty for the entertainment of his friends and family. He was a very successful embroiderer until he came up against the sage Ai-tse.

  “What’s the news from home?” asked Ai-tse one day. The question was the perfect opening for Mao K’ung’s specialty.

  “Oh!” Mao exclaimed, clasping his hands in wonderment. “Everybody’s talking about it. A farmer in Chi-mo has a hen that hatched a hundred chicks!”

  “Nonsense!” scoffed Ai-tse. “Impossible!”

  “Well, maybe there were two hens,” Mao conceded, recognizing that his stitch had been too extravagant.

  “Still impossible!”

  “Then maybe three, or five—a couple more?”

  The sage was impatient. “Why do you keep increasing the hens instead of reducing the chicks to a number that can be believed?”

  “Because I prefer increasing the old instead of the young,” Mao mumbled, crestfallen that his story had not impressed the sage.

  Ai-tse laughed. “Well, what else is happening at home?”

  Mao’s face brightened. “A miracle!” he cried. “Just the other day, a whole side of beef fell from the clouds on to South Road, enough to feed the village.”

  “From the clouds? No!”

  “It must have been. The meat just appeared. Nobody put it there.”


  “It could have fallen from the butcher’s cart.”

  “The slaughterhouse is on North Road,” Mao insisted. “The butcher doesn’t travel on South Road!”

  Ai-tse grew impatient. “Let me ask you, Mao, where exactly on South Road did the meat fall down? If you can tell me that, I’ll believe your story.”

  In earnest Mao protested. “It must be true because everybody’s talking about it!”

  The Vigilant Sentry

  Li Shih-min was locked in a great power struggle with his brothers. To spare his people the horrors of war, he took his army far afield and set up camp on a plain. At night great watchfires were lit, sentries were posted, and everyone was alerted for an attack that could come at any time.

  Early one morning as Li was leaving camp with a small guard to check the outposts, a sentry stepped into his path and halted him.

  “Sir!” the sentry cried out, saluting. “Do not leave camp today!”

  “And why not?” Li asked, half angry at the man’s boldness but impressed by his earnestness.

  “I had a terrible dream last night,” the sentry answered.

  “Oh?” Li said. “And what was this dream?”

  “I dreamed you were ambushed near the river. The attackers were too many and could not be repulsed. Much blood was shed.”

  “I thank you for the warning,” said Li, and he gave the sentry ten taels of silver before he signaled to his men and rode away.

  That evening the sentry was relieved of watch duty and assigned to the daytime chore of scouring pots. He was left to wonder why he was rewarded with silver in the morning and demoted that night.

  Kwan—yin, the Goddess of Mercy

  There was once a farmer who worked hard, saved his money, and gave something to his temple every feast day. Sadly, however, he was not a filial son. He was ashamed of his mother, who was wrinkled, threadbare, and simple with age. He saw in her what he would someday become, and he feared and hated it. And so he was not kind. He spoke harshly when he spoke to her at all, had her eat meals alone, and sent her to her room whenever visitors called. His mother endured his treatment with never a word of complaint.