3 Beautiful Chinese Fables With Good Lessons

Almost all Chinese fables, especially the oldest, are short stories with good lessons. People have passed them on from generation to generation, and many of them are still talked about today.

Many Chinese fables have not been written, people have simply told them. They represent a didactic way of communicating the main values ​​of oriental culture to the newer generations.

On this occasion, we give you 3 traditional Chinese fables. Each one focuses on showing how values ​​and their lack of them have certain consequences. Here they are, so enjoy them!

Knesic fables: The seagull and the kindness

In an ancient kingdom lived a wealthy and powerful man who loved seagulls. Every morning he would get up and look at the sea, which was near his mansion. He could ponder the white birds that amazed him for hours.

One day he found a seagull on the terrace. He was quite shocked and ran away to look at it. The man saw that it was wounded. He took it in his arms and ordered his doctors to cure it. The wound was not so deep, and the seagull recovered quite quickly. The man was ecstatic.

The seagull surprised him so much that he decided to entertain it. He ordered people to prepare the best food for it: pheasant, exotic meat, delicious fruits and all kinds of delicacies. However, the seagull did not eat anything. The man tried to get it to eat the food, but it just would not. Three days passed, and consequently the seagull died.

This is a Chinese fable that teaches us how love is sometimes not really love, just selfishness. The man in this story believed that the seagull liked the same things he liked. He focused only on himself, instead of what the seagull really needed.

Chinese fables: The man who saw no one

In the ancient kingdom of Qi lived a man who had an insatiable thirst for gold. Unfortunately, he was very poor, and his work did not give him much money. He barely had enough to survive. Still, the idea of ​​getting gold still fascinated him.

This man knew that several buyers were putting up beautiful gold figures in their market stalls. These items would always stand on beautiful velvet mantles. The rich men of the city would go there to observe them. Sometimes they bought them and other times not.

Suddenly the man came up with a plan to take one of the figures that shone so brightly in the sun. One day he put on his best clothes and ornaments and went to the market. He pretended to observe the gold figures and suddenly he took one and fled. He was caught very quickly.

The two guards asked him why he decided to steal the figures in broad daylight with hundreds of witnesses around him. The man told them he did not even think about these things. He was just thinking about getting the gold figures, that was it. This is one of the Chinese fables that talks about the blindness that comes with greed.

Chinese fables: The man who was obsessed with dragons

It was a man who was obsessed with dragons. He admired their shape and the way they looked. He became very excited when he looked at pictures of them blowing fire through their mouths and killing all their enemies.

This man was so obsessed with dragons that he remembered every single story that mentioned them. He also had giant kites painted over the walls and roof of his house. His house looked like a temple dedicated to dragons.

One night, when he least expected it, a dragon’s head broke through one of the windows of his house. Without giving the man time to react, the dragon began to breathe fire everywhere. Consistently, the man ran away and started screaming. This is one of the Chinese fables that teaches us to love concrete realities instead of the ones we create in our minds.

Chinese fables are quite charming because they show us how important social values ​​are.