Tag Archives: Fable

BOOK: “Saiweng Lost His Horse” [塞翁失马] by Qixia Yu

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Saiweng Lost His Horse 塞翁失马: A Story about Life and Values (Bilingual Chinese Idiom Stories)Saiweng Lost His Horse 塞翁失马: A Story about Life and Values by Qixia Yu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This bilingual illustrated book tells the famous Taoist story often referred to as “good news? bad news? who’s to say?” (or words to that effect.) The story, originally contained in the Huainanzi (i.e. The Book of Master Huainan,) shows a wise old farmer subjected to the ups and downs of life. The old man’s neighbors are always surprised when the farmer neither celebrates positive events or bemoans negative ones — realizing the truth contained in the taiji symbol (yin / yang symbol) that the seed of the light is always in the dark and vice versa.

The book contains text in Simplified Chinese, pinyin, and English. It also has pretty illustrations. It’s very kid’s book-like (i.e. short, illustrated, and formatted as such;) though the story, itself, is not particularly juvenile.

I was surprised when this would not open on my laptop “Kindle for PC” reader as another book in this series had. (I like to read illustrated works (and Chinese writings) that way as it’s generally easier to take in than on my phone or Kindle because the big screen is easy to see and enlarge as necessary. That said, I was quite pleased with the ease with which I could magnify the text on my Kindle device. I had none of the frustration reading it on Kindle that I frequently have had with graphic novels and such in the past.

I enjoyed reading this story and found it quite helpful to me as a Chinese language learner. I’d highly recommend it for those learning to read Chinese.

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“Fable” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]

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The mountain and the squirrel  
  Had a quarrel;  
 And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’
 Bun replied,  
 ‘You are doubtless very big;         
  But all sorts of things and weather  
  Must be taken in together,  
  To make up a year  
  And a sphere.  
 And I think it no disgrace  
  To occupy my place.  
 If I'm not so large as you,  
  You are not so small as I,  
  And not half so spry.  
 I'll not deny you make  
  A very pretty squirrel track;  
  Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;  
 If I cannot carry forests on my back,  
  Neither can you crack a nut.’

“A Passage to India” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]

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Passage O soul to India!
 Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive
   fables.

Not you alone, proud truths of the
   world,
 Nor you alone, ye facts of modern
   science,
 But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's
   fables,
 The far-darting beams of the spirit, the
   unloos'd dreams,
 The deep diving bibles and legends,
 The daring plots of the poets, the elder
   religions;
 O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over
   by the rising sun!
 O you fables, spurning the known, eluding
   the hold of the known, mounting to 
   heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled,
   red as roses, burnish'd with gold!
 Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from
   mortal dreams!
 You too I welcome, and fully, the same as
    the rest!
 You too with joy I sing.

Passage to India!
 Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from
   the first?
 The earth to be spann'd, connected by
   network,
 The races, neighbors, to marry and be given
   in marriage,
 The oceans to be cross'd, the distant
   brought near,
 The lands to be welded together.

A worship new I sing,
 You captains, voyagers, explorers,
   yours,
 You engineers, you architects, machinists,
   yours,
 You, not for trade or transportation only,
 But in God's name, and for thy sake, O
   soul.