Stories & proverbs
Ye Xian and the golden shoe
A girl, a secret fish and a lost golden shoe: an original retelling of the Chinese tale recorded by Duan Chengshi in the ninth century.
Read the storyStories & proverbs
Read the tales themselves: Chinese folktales, fables, legends and stories behind proverbs. Each retelling identifies its source and any changes made for younger readers.
Settle in for a story
This section is for the tales themselves: folktales, fables, legends and stories behind proverbs. Start with a short fable below, or choose a longer retelling from the magazine.
The farmer who waited by a tree
In a fable in Han Feizi, a rabbit runs into a tree trunk and dies. A farmer picks it up, then leaves his work to wait for another rabbit. None comes. It’s a reminder that one lucky result is a poor plan for the future.
This is a literary fable, not a report of a real farmer. Read the fable: Hong Kong Education Bureau’s edition of Han Feizi (PDF) ↗
Mending the pen after losing a sheep
An adviser in Strategies of the Warring States uses the image of repairing a sheep pen after a loss: even when something has gone wrong, acting now can prevent the next loss. The familiar sheep-pen story is a way to remember the expression; the classical passage uses it as an analogy.
A lesson to consider, rather than a rule for every situation. Read the expression and its source: Taiwan’s Ministry of Education Dictionary of Chinese Idioms ↗
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