[PureInsight.org] Zheng Banqiao was poverty-stricken during his early years. One year during New Years Eve, he bought a pig’s head on credit from the butcher. When he was about to cook it, the greedy butcher took advantage of his poverty and rushed to ask for the pig’s head back and then sold it to others at a higher price. Afterwards Zheng Banqiao always kept hatred for the butcher in his heart.
Later, when Zheng Banqiao became an official in Fan County of Shandong Province, he specially ruled that butchers were not allowed to sell pig’s heads in order to get his revenge toward the butcher. After his wife heard of this, she realized that her husband’s solution was inappropriate so she thought of a way to convince her husband to cancel the law.
One day, she caught a rat and tied a rope to it and hung it in a room. At night, the rat kept struggling, disturbing Zheng Banqiao’s sleep. His wife explained that when she was little she used a lot of resources to make a new garment but it was eaten by a rat, so tying up the rat was her punishment for rats. Zheng Banqiao laughed at this, saying, “The rat in Xinghua ate your garment, not the ones from Shandong. So why do you resent them?” The wife said, “Don’t you also resent the butcher from Fan County?” Zheng Banqiao suddenly realized his mistake and said that he would fix it by rescinding the law. He also chanted a poem, “Wife’s sincere words are precious, Banqiao does not work reasonably enough. Even though butcher’s snobbishness is abominable, an official should not resent personal conflicts.”
Ancient people read virtuous and scholarly books and aspired to become gentlemen and virtuous people. They followed people of high principles and would consciously look inward whenever they encountered conflicts or issues. A common saying was: “On seeing a man of virtue, try to become his equal; on seeing a man without virtue, examine yourself not to have the same defects.” No one would say that someone who fixes their mistakes after realizing them is bad. They would consider them tolerant and virtuous. But today’s Mainland Chinese people are not like this. They are indoctrinated with the evil principles of the Chinese Communist Party; they read textbooks written with lies and that espouse violence. When they encounter conflicts and troubles, they only look for other people’s faults and use the method of “struggle” to fight and solve problems. They always think they are right and others are wrong, and they argue without reason. Compared to traditional Chinese culture that has been passed down for several thousand years, it is clear which way is righteous and which is evil.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/119237
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