The product of the Chinese New Year Sing Song Project was finally released. I indeed sounded awful. 
Kudos to Lin Peh for spending time in compiling the song.
Kudos to Lin Peh for spending time in compiling the song.
贝 likes to read biographies, especially of the famous personalities from the era of Qing Dynasty. Currently, he's reading the biography of Yuan Shi Kai (袁世凯).
I can never understand how he could find such books interesting at all. Look at the tiny Chinese characters squeezed into the yellowish pages. Oh boy, just skimming through a few sentences and i would be dozing off already.
He always shares with me the interesting things that he read from the books. There's this little story that i found quite interesting so i'm writing this down.
Click on the images to read the original text in the book
During the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后) when Yuan was just a General, he tried very hard to get into the Dowager's good book. Before he went to the imperial court to meet the Dowager, he bribed her favourite eunuch, Li Lian Ying (李莲英), or nicknamed Xiao Li Zi (小李子), to give him some tips on how to butter her up.
Li told Yuan that the Dowager liked to listen to flattery words (who doesn't?). So if he spoke of something that she liked to hear, he should continue elaborating on it. Conversely, if he spoke of something that she didn't like, he should stop talking about it and change the subject.
This shouldn't be too difficult huh? Well, there was one problem though -- all officials who meet the Dowager must kowtow and no one was allowed to look at her unless the privilege was granted by her. In this case, Yuan would not be able to observe her reaction to determine whether or not he was saying something to the liking of the Dowager.
The crafty Li came up with an idea. He told Yuan to pay attention to his feet. During their meeting, Li would stand beside the Dowager. If he put his feet together, it meant Yuan had said something that the Dowager didn't like and shouldn't continue on the topic anymore. Conversely, if Li stood with his feet apart, then it meant the Dowager liked what she heard and Yuan should continue his conversation boldly.
This tactic worked very well. With the help of Li, Yuan managed to make the Dowager very happy every meeting and eventually he was granted to be seated during their meeting.
And the moral of the story: behind every man's success, there's always a person without a penis.
Labels: story
