Chinese Fables and Folk Stories/The Boy who wanted the Impossible
THE BOY WHO WANTED THE IMPOSSIBLE
欲所不能欲者
Tsing-Ching (Pure Gold) was four years old when his parents sent him to a "baby school"[1] for the first time and told him that the teacher could tell him everything he would like to know.
When he saw a queer bird flying around he asked his teacher, "What kind of thing is that in the air?" His teacher told him, "A bird," and that to be a bird meant to fly around and sing in every place and make music for the people.
The boy said, "Can I not do it?" His teacher said, "Yes, you can sing music for the people, but you can not fly unless you get wings."
Tsing-Ching replied, "Yes, I can do that, too. My grandmother told me about a spirit with wings."
His teacher said, "If your grandmother told you that, you can try and see. You may be a man with wings sometime."[2]
Just then the servant girl, that his mother had sent, came to fetch him home from school.
When they reached the park by his home, Tsing-Ching said, "Lau-Mai, I want that long ladder and a long stick." The nurse-girl did not know what he would do with them, but she finally had to give him both to keep him from crying. She was afraid his mother would hear him cry and that she would come out and scold her for not taking better care of the child.
As he took the long ladder he said, "Now I am going to be a bird." His nurse said, "You can not be a bird, Tsing-Ching. Birds fly. You can not fly. Why are you trying to climb up the ladder? That is not the way to be a bird."
Lau-Mai helped him up two or three steps, when his mother called her to come in and she left him there for a little time.
He climbed up, up, nine steps by himself—and fell down. But he was not hurt, nor did he cry; he had no fear—he thought of but one thing—he was going to be a bird.
Suddenly his mother came and saw him again trying to climb up the ladder and asked, "What are you doing, Tsing-Ching?"
He answered, "I want to be a bird; wait, I will try again. I know that birds fly in the air, not on the ground. I can not fly on earth. If I get up high in the air, then I know I can fly."
His mother thought he wanted to climb up and get a bird; she looked all around and said, "There is no bird up there now."
"But, Ah-Ma,[3] I want to be a bird."
The servant Lau-Mai came just then and explained to his mother. His mother said he was a foolish boy, and gave him food and sent him to school again.
In two hours the teacher sent all the boys out to play. They ran to the pond where the gold-fish were, for they liked to watch them swim in the water.
After exercise, they all went into the schoolroom and Tsing-Ching told his teacher, "I saw many goldfish swimming in the pond. Did you know that, teacher? A man fed them rice and they all came out for him. They seemed so happy, they shook their tails and waved their fins and swam up and down and all around in the cool water. Oh, I should like to be a fish."
His teacher said, "Learn lessons now." But Tsing-Ching could not study; he could only think, think about the fish. Soon he asked that he might go out to drink. Then he went to the pond and took off his clothes, but the gardener saw him and asked, "What are you doing, boy? This is school-time."
"I want to be a fish," said Tsing-Ching.
The gardener thought he wanted to catch the fish and said, "The fish are for your eyes and not for your hands. Do not disturb them."
Tsing-Ching sat down and waited until the gardener went away. Then he stepped into the water and talked to the fish.
"I am going to be one of you now," he said. "Come to me and show me how to swim with you." But they all hurried away.
For half an hour he splashed in the shallow water, trying to swim, until the teacher thought, "Where is Tsing-Ching?" and sent a boy to see. He found him in the pond and asked him to come into the schoolroom, saying the teacher would punish him if he did not.
"No," said Tsing-Ching, "I shall be a fish; I told the teacher I was going to be a fish." And so the boy went back and told the teacher, who hardly knew what to think.
Finally he went out with a stick and asked, "Tsing-Ching, what are you doing here? Do you know this is school-time? Do you know that you were allowed only to go out for a drink and not to stay here and play? You have done wrong."
"Why, teacher, I told you that I wanted to be a fish," said Tsing-Ching. "I do not want books or exercises. I am going to be a fish and I will not go to school. Mother said you teach everything; now teach me to be a fish."
His teacher said, "How foolish you are, Tsing-Ching; you are a boy, a man. You can learn many things better than to be a fish. Come with me now."
That night when Tsing-Ching was walking with his mother and nurse out by the water, he saw the summer moon shining in the lake.
"How strange, Ah-Ma, the moon is under the lake! See, it raises the lake and shakes it all the time. I want it. What kind of a white ball is it?"
Then his mother told him that the moon was in the sky, not in the lake, and she explained and showed him. And when he saw the moon in the sky, he said, "I know that it is not the moon in the lake, for it shakes. It is not quiet like that one in the sky. It is a silver ball, I know."
He asked so many questions that his mother grew tired of answering and let him ask unnoticed. Then he wandered away a little distance and threw stones in the water. And the waters waved and the white ball danced so prettily that he wanted it very much. He waded into the lake, deeper, deeper, until he fell down. He screamed and swallowed the water, and it took a long time to make him alive again, after his mother took him out of the lake.
When the neighbors heard about it, they said, "Foolish boy; not satisfied to do the things he can—he is always wanting things he can not have."
Many people in this world are like Tsing-Ching.
- ↑ The little children of China from three to six years of age are often tent to a subscription school to learn to talk, write characters, etc. The teachers of these schools are required to be men of very exemplary character. They must be gentle and kind and, above all, have no bad habits.
- ↑ "A man with wings." This can not be translated into the word angel.
This story from the "Chinese History," or life stories from the actual lives of the people, was taken from a district of China where Buddhism prevails. Tsing-Ching's idea of a man spirit with wings after death was based, on the belief taught by the Buddhist priests that man might live again, but that no one could attain again a state of consciousness if he killed, spilled blood, or ate flesh. Meat-eaters were consequently barred from ever wearing wings.
The idea of wings was not general, as the Buddhist spirit was never pictured as having wings, though being able to float through the air.
The hope of a future life was a little brighter for the Buddhist, however, than for the follower of Confucius. That great and good man's law of life pave three hundred and fifty precepts, and man by following them might hope for eternal consciousness; but though they were a good basis for a moral character, they were the despair of those who tried to keep all three hundred and fifty of them in the hope of winning eternal life. - ↑ Canton dialect word meaning mother.