this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Sounds like the Chinese variant of Diogenes at work, I'd love to hear more details - was this something that really happened or a clever tale constructed later? If those people were real, what else did they produce?
Apparently the poet was "Su Dongpo" and the friend was "Fo yin" if you google the names together, this story comes up.
Super random but there is also apparently a dish named after the poet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongpo_pork
Damn, this guy went super hard.
On the Birth of a Son
Families when a child is born
Hope it will turn out intelligent.
I, through intelligence
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope that the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he'll be happy all his days
And grow into a cabinet minister.
This made me laugh
Thanks, that should be enough for diving down a research rabbit hole!
Some hot air, I’d imagine.
All parables and proverbs are made up, with old characters added to give fake legitimacy.
Even star wars?
I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to lie if the text is yellow and scrolls from the bottom of the screen in 3D.
my culture good, foreign culture bad
Uhh wrong thread?
Very true - although I'd add an "almost", at least in a few cases, authentic letters - or for the modern era, recordings - can at least root the fundamentals in something that actually happened. (Although even then, whatever gets tossed around as a parable/proverb will be heavily embellished and/or stripped of context, of course).
Now you gonna tell me old man Yu didn't have his family raze down that mountain?