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Showing posts from September, 2011

The story of Chopsticks

When the first English Seaman set his foot on the beach of the Yangtze River near Shanghai, he saw some Chinese fisherman having their lunch. Those fishermen invited him to join in, and gave him a bowl of boiled rice and a pair of bamboo sticks, and they shared a pot of chicken stew. When the English seaman was watching interestingly how those Chinese fishermen pick up rice and chicken from the pot using a pair of bamboo sticks. Those fishermen waved their chopsticks, saying: "Chop, Chop. "(Eat, eat!) Then they showed him how to pluck chicken meat off the bone by the chopsticks. What they meant actually was to encourage the seaman to start eating, but the English seaman mistook it as the name of bamboo sticks. So he wrote in his sea diary: Chinese don't eat with forks and knives, they use chopsticks instead! That's how this English word chopsticks has been invented. Actually, the Chinese word for Chopsticks was "Zhu", which sounds similar to the word &q

Unending Story

Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and on the mountain there was a temple, and in the temple there was an old monk and a little monk. One day, the old monk said to the little monk: 'I tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and on the mountain there was a temple, and in the temple there's an old monk and a little monk. One day, the old monk said to the little monk: 'I tell you a story...'