Once there was a boy who was told by his master to catch a hare. He went into the woods and looked around. Lo and behold, he saw a hare running along at full speed. As he watched in astonishment, the hare ran smack into a tree and knocked itself uncontious. All the boy had to do was to pick it up. For the rest of his life, the boy waited behind the same tree in the hope that more hares would do the same thing."
I've known several people who, having succeeded just once in their life, spent the rest of it behind the same tree waiting to succeed again.
However, that's not the reason why I bought this book; in fact, I almost didn't buy it at all as I'm not into autobigraphies which are now as common as adultery and hardly less reprehensible.
I bought it because it was a mere two dollars in my favourite op-shop, and because it said in the blurb, "Reflecting on her own experience of what she herself found most precious as she grew up in China, Adeline Yen Mah shares with us her views of Chinese philosophy, history and language and shows how those in the west can benefit from the east."
I benefitted a lot because I learned a lot. It gave me an understanding of the richness of Chinese culture and the ways that we can take and use some of the wisdom for ourselves in the West. All for two dollars!
