Traditional societies with long histories perhaps know the value of patience better than societies with much shorter histories. They understand that it often takes a long time to bring about the changes that you desire. The first saying below derives from the fact that in ancient China, except for the upper class, the majority of people often didn’t have enough to eat. To become fat in traditional China, and indeed in almost every traditional society in the world, was a sign that you were prosperous enough to have an abundance of food. So being “fat” was a good thing!
The fourth proverb below refers to an ancient story about an old farmer who lived on one side of a huge mountain but whose fields were on the other side. Every morning, the old man and his sons had to go around the mountain to cultivate their crops. One day, the old man convinced his sons to start removing the mountain with their shovels. The man’s neighbours naturally thought that the old man was crazy for having such a foolish notion and told him so. The old man replied that although the mountain could not be “moved” away in his lifetime or even that of his sons and grandsons, over time his family would eliminate this obstacle that made their lives difficult, if only they persevered. This realization of the need to be patient in achieving one’s goals is not unknown outside China. Witness the expressions “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “Good things take time.” But unlike in China, in the United States the focus is on achieving quick results, such as “learning Chinese in ten minutes a day” or wanting things to be “done yesterday.” Americans sound like the farmer who wanted to help his crops grow faster by pulling on their stalks, which only ends up killing the plant. Older societies like China caution against such unreasonable expectations.
A fat person didn’t get fat with just one mouthful.
(Rome wasn’t built in a day.)
Food must be eaten bite by bite; a road must be walked step by step.
(Things must be accomplished one step at a time and cannot be rushed.)
One who is burning with impatience can never eat hot porridge.
(Patience is necessary to accomplish anything, even when it comes to waiting for your rice gruel to be heated.)
The foolish old man moved the mountain.
(Anything can be done if you work long and hard enough at it.)
With enough work, an iron rod can be ground into a needle.
(Almost anything can be achieved if you put enough effort into it.)
Good things are produced only through much grinding.
(Nothing good can be accomplished without a lot of work and many setbacks.)
Many little drops of water can turn into a [mighty] river.
(Giant oaks from tiny acorns grow.)
A thousand-mile journey starts under your feet.
(The longest journey begins with a single step.)
[Don’t] pull on seedlings to help them grow.
(It’s human nature to be impatient for good things to happen, but you can’t force good things to happen before the required time has elapsed.)
It takes one [full] year for a tree to start growing; it takes ten years for a person to start growing.
(Good things take time, especially for a person to mature into wisdom.)
Failure is the mother of success.
Everything is hard in the beginning.
Excerpted from Chinese Proverbs and Popular Sayings: With Observations on Culture and Language . Copyright (c) 2012 Stone Bridge Press, Qin Xue Herzberg and Larry Herzberg. Text reproduced with permission of the publisher. |
