You Are a Pail

A young man was nervous about his prospects of starting a new life upon his college graduation. He went to see his grandfather for some advice.

His grandfather didn't give him any advice. Instead, the old man asked the young man to carry a pail of night soil to the vegetable garden. The night soil emitted such a bad stink that the young man wanted to dump the pail there and then. But he carried it with his grandfather to the vegetable garden. After applying the night soil to the vegetables, the young man helped his grandfather cleanse the pail and put it away by the toilet. It turned out the pail still emitted a foul smell after it was cleansed so the toilet was the right place to store the pail.

Then the grandfather got out another pail and asked the young man to carry a pail of water from the river. It turned out that the river was about 2 km from the house. The young wanted to refuse, but he knew better. So he carried a pail of water all the way back to the house only to find that the water vat was full.

It turned out that the grandfather wanted him to carry water from the river only to have him stay for lunch. So the young man had lunch with his grandfather. The old man asked the young man to get some rice wine from a wooden pail. The young man got the wine for his grandfather. The wine smelled and tasted well.

The grandfather did not give the young man any advice until the young man was about to leave.

The old man said, “You see, I made the three pails out of the same timber. When they were new, they looked the same and smelt the same and felt the same. Then one became a pail for night soil, another one for water and the third one for wine. They are different now.”

Mouse and Rice

A mouse found its way into a huge rice vase by accident. The vat was full of rice. The mouse was pleased. After making sure that it was safe, the mouse enjoyed a big banquet and treated himself to a big sleep. Day in and day out, the mouse enjoyed this godsend way of life and faced the dilemma. It considered getting out of the vat immediately and then staying there for another day. Then one day it found that it was unable to get out. Some philosophers observe that the height that the mouse can reach is its life height and that the rice in the vat is the touchstone. If the mouse wants all of the rice in the vat, it must pay for it with its life. In everyday life, most people know where they should stop when danger is obvious. But hidden dangers are not so easy to recognize and the height of life is easy to get beyond ones reach.

Is Paris Burning?

In August, 1944, Hitler ordered to destroy Paris as the allied forces approached the important city. He asked “Is Paris Burning” on the day the city was supposed to be burning. The city remained undestroyed because the military governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, disobeyed the order and let the city fall into the hands of the Allies.

Twenty years later, American Newsweek journalist Larry Collins and French journalist Dominique Lapierre decided to write a book about events taking place in August 1944 and leading to the liberation of Paris. They spent three years interviewing more than 800 witnesses and researching historical references. In one of these research days, they ran into a telegraph text and read Hitlers question. The question was so good that the two decided to use it as the title for their book. The book became a bestseller and a movie that won two Oscar prizes in 1966.

The book vividly records how the mayor of Paris successfully persuaded Choltitz not to burn the great city and how resistance soldiers suffered and survived and how some Germans surrendered. The book depicts human dramas, emotions and values under the war circumstances so truthfully that it is regarded as a milestone in journalism. □