Fable- China

“One sunny day, there was a clam lying on the beach. She opened her shell sunbathing on

the sand.

Snipe, gliding in the sky, was looking for food. He saw the sparkling white flesh of the clam.

He thought that it would be a delicious meal. He swooped down to peck her flesh. The clam

immediately closed up her shell, gripping the long snipe’s beak in between.

“If it doesn’t rain today, and it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” the snipe grunted, “I shall see a

dead clam on the beach.”

“If I don’t open today and I don’t open tomorrow,” said the clam, “I, too, shall see a dead

snipe on the beach.”

Then the snipe pecked at the flesh of the clam. The clam held the beak of the snipe tightly.

Neither the clam nor the snipe released each other.

A fisherman passed by and found the snipe and the clam grappling with each other. He

spread out his net and caught both the snipe and the clam with ease.”

Yvonne told me that she originally learned this story in Chinese at her Chinese school when she was about 5 years old. However, she said she didn’t know how to write it in Chinese so she emailed me the translated version she knows. She said in Chinese school, the teachers would make the students read classic Chinese children fables. She thinks that they did this so they can “kill two birds with one stone”. By making them read the Chinese fables; the students learned how to read and learn a lesson. Yvonne told me that the lesson of the story is that by fighting, no one wins. She said that it refers to mostly to neighbors. Since the bird and clam were neighbors and were fighting; they both got caught by the fisherman.

I have never heard this story before until Yvonne sent it to me. After reading the story, the moral of the story is pretty clear. Since the neighbors (the clam and the bird) were fighting, the fisherman easily caught them both. It shows that by fighting, no one benefits. If the neighbors lived in peace and harmony, both of them would be free and not caught by the fisherman.

After looking up this story on online, I found the exact same story online with Chinese characters (see below for image) and another story that is a little different. On Wikipedia, the story goes, “A clam was sitting out in the sun when suddenly a snipe flew down to peck at the clam. Suddenly the clam slammed the shell shut, gripping the snipe’s beak in between. The snipe said, “If it doesn’t rain today, and it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I shall see a dead clam on the beach.” The clam said, “If I don’t open today, and I don’t open up tomorrow, I shall see a dead snipe on the beach.” While they were still grappling with each other, a fisherman passed by and netted them both.”[1] The story is titled differently and worded differently than the one sent to me by Yvonne but the moral of the story is the same; no one wins when they fight.

[2]

Source

1) “The Fight between the Snipe and the Clam”. Wikipedia. 16 December 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fight_Between_the_Snipe_and_the_Clam> 29 April 2008.

2) “The Snipe and the Clam”. EMAS Portsmouth.  <http://www.blss.portsmouth.sch.uk/resources/dlstories/snipe/snipe.shtml> 29 April 2008.

Fable- United States

“A hare was making fun of a tortoise one day for being so slow.  “Do you ever get anywhere?” the hare asked with a mocking laugh.

“Yes,” replied the tortoise, “and I get there sooner than you think.  Run a race against me and I’ll prove it.”

The hare was very amused at the thought of running a race with the tortoise, and just for fun he decided to do it. So the fox, who agreed to act as judge marked the distance for the race on a path through the woods, and started the runners off.  The hare was soon far out of sight. To let the tortoise know how silly it was for him to challenge a speedy hare, the hare decided to lie down beside the road to take a nap until the tortoise could catch up.

The tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily. After a time, the tortoise passed the place where the hare was sleeping. The hare slept on very peacefully.  When at last he did wake up, the tortoise was already very near the finish line. The hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the tortoise in time.”

Yvonne told me that her mother told her this story when she was about 5 to 6 years old. She said that she was really lazy when she was a child and never wanted to clean her room. Whenever her mother told her to do something or clean her room, she always postponed it until the last minute. She said she would always wait till her mother was mad and it would be too late. She said one day, her mother sat her down and told her this story. Her mother told her this story to teach her a lesson in life. Yvonne said the moral she learned was that lazy people don’t succeed in life and hardworking, perseverant people succeed in life.

I think everyone has heard of at least one variation of “the Hare and the Tortoise”. I remember my father telling me this story in Korean when I was young. I think every child at one point in their life was lazy and had their parent tell them the story of “the Hare and the Tortoise”. In my story, I think the Hare went to get a meal first and then decided to take a nap after the meal. There are slight differences in the story but the overall moral of the story was the same. You have to be hard working and not lazy to succeed in life.

I know many books and stories have been published with “the moral of the Hare and the Tortoise” as the backbone of the story. I searched online for different variations of the story. The search came up with a never ending list of stories. Most of the stories that came up were very similar. One of the websites had a slightly different story than the one Yvonne sent me. In this story, the hare not only teases the tortoise but he also brags about his quickness to all the other animals. This story brings in the community surrounding the hare and tortoise; making the story more detailed and entertaining [1]. There are many other different variations of the story; some of the stories are more detailed than the others.

Sources

1)      “The Hare and the Tortoise”. Children’s Story. <http://www.childrenstory.com/tales/indexhare.html> 29 April 2008