Okay, sorry, yes, I didn’t get around to saying what that first article that got this started was about yet. I should have explained that, just thought I had nattered on long enough for the day.
The gist of it all is that the article in a regional publication was indirectly on the subject of pre-Columbian maritime world exploration by the Ming Chinese treasure fleet…
So? How does an otherwise “sane” pair of outdoor journalists let themselves wander off on such a wild tangent??? It’s far simpler than it might seem, and I promise, I WILL get to it.
But one more digression first, and I do promise that I’ll try to keep it to just that one.
A fellow researcher chided me a few days ago about not taking into account that classical Chinese literature is brimming over with metaphors, parables, and idiom. He further chided me that I needed to understand that even scholars in China had difficulty with understanding all that.
I reply to his admonitions, “okay… fine ... understood … taken into account already …”
This morning, I woke up with a story running through my head … not one I could remember hearing before … just a story… And I told it to my youngest child, who understood immediately and laughed …. Here it is ...
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“The Certitude of Mankind & the Incredible Delicacy of the Daughter of the Sea King”
One day, a poor fisherman stepped out of his mean hovel and looked out across the great saltwater bay he had built his home beside. He thought to himself, “The mouth of this bay is narrow. If I only build a stone wall across it, I can then pump out all the water and my family will grow wealthy for generations to come farming the land we will steal from the hand of the King of the Sea.”
So, he did just that.
And life was good, and the former fisherman began to grow rich.
One day, he saw a young woman standing before the wall he had built, staring at it. When he approached her to ask her “why?” He realized that the beauty and delicacy of this young maiden was beyond that of humankind, and that she was obviously a daughter of the King of the Sea.
So, the former fisherman showed the Sea King’s daughter how well he had built his wall against the sea, and how strong it was, and explained to her how she might as well return to her father and comfort him for the land that the land which the fisherman had stolen could not ever possibly be regained. The beautiful young woman gazed at him serenely with her head cocked in silent thought. After a few moments, she knelt and scooped up a single small handful of sand and tossed it over the wall into the sea.
Then she finally spoke, saying, “So I see…” and then faded into mist and disappeared.
For years and eventually generations after that, the people farming the reclaimed lands would see the sea maiden each morning. Standing in the same spot, looking at the wall that held the sea at bay, always replying to any argument that she might as well give up her vigil with no more words than she answered with the first time she had been confronted, “So I see,” before disappearing again.
As the years passed, the descendents of the first fisherman became men of great wealth and power. Kings of many lands came to them to humbly ask for their advice and support. And where the first fisherman’s mean hovel had once stood, a succession of ever greater and more lavish palaces arose over time.
One day, the descendent of the fisherman who was now lord of the valley stepped out from his front door to survey his rich farm lands and congratulate himself on his successes.
To his horror, his feet were wet and the pounding surf surrounded him. The reclaimed valley and all his wealth with it had vanished once more beneath the waves, taken back by the King of the Sea.
In that moment, he understood what his ancestor had not.
The beautiful and delicate daughter of the sea king had NOT said, “So I see…”
She had really said, “So??? I SEA!”
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The moral of this tale being, I may not make my point immediately, but I am patient, and like the sea which wears down to nothing even the greatest stones with the paltry weapon of only a few grains of sand, I will grind away at this debate I have entered into grain by grain, and the truth will have its way in the end.
‘Nuf said for now, more next time …
I’ve lots more than just a small handful of sand to toss into the sea.
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