Saiweng Lost His Horse

Last Monday, my friend emailed me that her position in the company will be eliminated. She wrote that she is ready to move on. I am so happy for my friend having such positive attitude. This reminds me a Chinese idiom, “Saiweng Lost His Horse”. Here is the story where the idiom came from:

There was an old man named Saiweng in Warring State. He raised horses. One day, he lost one of his horses. When his neighbors heard about it, they went to comfort him. Saiweng smiled and said: “ It’s not a big loss by losing a horse, it might bring me luck.” When the neighbors heard that, they could not understand how it could be possible being good by losing a horse.

Few days later, the lost horse was back and brought along several wild horses.

Neighbors admired Saiweng’s foresight. They came to congratulate. But Saiweng was not as happy as neighbors thought, instead, he looked a little bit worried: “ It won’t be lucky, it might bring me disaster.” The neighbors thought that Saiweng might be very happy but just hided his happiness.

Saiweng’s only son loved to ride horses. One day, he rode one of the wild horses and fell down with a broken leg. Neighbors went to Saiweng to comfort him. Saiweng was not sad at all and said: “ It’s lucky that he is still alive.” Neighbors thought that there was something wrong with Saiweng. How could he be happy for the only son with a broken leg?

Not long after, the war started. All the young men were recruited to fight and they all died at the battlefield. Since Saiweng’s son had a broken leg, he was excused and that saved his life.

In Chinese cultural, when people hear the “bad” news, they would frequently say “Oh, don’t worry, that is ‘Saiweng lost a horse’.” In English, there is a similar phrase I like, “you never know.” We can only know that it is good or bad at the moment, but everything is developing, we don’t know its impact until later. Bad luck may turn into good one and good luck can be a bad sometimes. But after all, we can not control what we will run into in our life, but how to handle it is up to us. There is always a positive side, we can learn and benefit from it.

Last Sunday I had lunch with a girl friend. I knew that she had a boss who was very difficult to please. At lunch, she told me that she moved to a new job. She is thankful to her ex-boss, if it was not her ex-boss, she would not look for a new job and she would be laid off since the company just announced a mess lay off. Now she works for a company that appreciates its employees and treat them very well (one of the benefits is to pay 3 meals a day and allows employees order anything they want to eat from 10 restaurants, even sashimi). Since my friend’s previous experience, now she appreciates her current boss and she is very happy at work.

The picture of this week’s flower arrangement is the New Year arrangement with traditional materials - pine, bamboo, plum and orchid. I set it up in the dancing studio where I take class. People loved it.

Wish you enjoy it and have a very Happy Monday.


In friendship through flowers,
Yirou.

本文有中文版。