Chinese Æsop:

After Qu Yuan was banished, he wandered, sometimes along the river's banks, sometimes along the marsh's edge, Singing as he went. His expression was dejected and his Features emaciated. A fisherman caught sight of him. 'Are not you the Lord of Wards?' said the fisherman. 'What has brought you to this pass?' 'Because all the world is muddy and I alone am clear,' said Qu Yuan, 'and all men are drunk and I alone am sober, I have been into exile.' 'The Wise Man is not chained to material circumstances,' said the fisherman, 'but can move as the world move. If the world is muddy, why not help them to stir up the mud and beat up the waves? And if all men are drunk, why not sup their dregs and swill their lees? Why get yourself exiled because of your thoughts and your fine aspirations?' Qu Yuan replied, 'I have heard it said: "He who has just washed his hair should brush his hat; and who has just bathed should shake his clo...

Many, perhaps forty years ago, I was walking in the interior of Canton province, not far from its great East river which flows on to join the streams from the north and west at Whampou. All at once my steps were arrested by a loud shouting from the river, and I hurried to the bank to see what was going on. There, as I stood above the water, I saw two boats, long and slender, each built to represent a dragon, the head of which rose high and formed the prow. A man sat upon it with a flag in each hand, which he waved to direct the movements of the crew, and with his face turned towards the helmsman who stood near the stern. Midway in the boats were two men beating with all their might, the one a gong, the other a drum. The crew in each boat could not have been fewer than thirty men, each grasping a short stout paddle, and all, with quivering eagerness and loud cries, racing towards a certain point. At the conclusion of the race, the rowers exerting all their strength and skill, and the ...