During the Warring States Period (zhàn guó 战国,475-221BC),the King of the State of Qi (qí guó 齐国) was very keen on listening to a traditional musical instrument called Yu (yǖ, 竽) ensembles. He used to require 300 Yu players to form a grand music together thus to express his generosity. These musicians could get rather handson payment through playing for the ruler. A man named Nanguo (nán guō 南郭) learned about that and he wanted badly to become a member of the band due to the big money,even though he was not good at playing the instrument at all. Things went on very smoothly just as Nanguo planed. He successfully got a positon in the Yu band. Whenever the band played for the king,Nanguo just stood in the line,pretending that he was playing with his home heart and soul. However, not even one person paid attention to his fake playing.

Long long ago,in ancient China, there were no donkeys in Guizhou (guì zhōu 贵州) province. One day,a man brought a donkey from somewhere else by boating,only to found that the big animal was futile indeed,so he tied it to a tree at the foot of a hill.

A tiger happened to see the donkey,and thought it must be a powerful monster simply juding from its giant figure and hence dared not to get close to it. However,the tiger didn’t plan give up that early,instead,it hid behind a tree and observed the donkey secretly.