Once upon a time, there was a poor man who was lonely and lived inside a small hut on a big mountain. Once a month, he came to a nearby village to get all his supplies. The store manager usually laughed at him and that made him feel embarrassed and ashamed. One day, the store manager was not there, there was a new clerk that was nicer to him.
The new clerk asked him, “How are you, sir?” He felt so good when others addressed him as “sir”, so when the clerk asked him, “where do you live?” he replied, “a castle”. Then the new clerk looked at him with eyes open wide, which amazed him even more.
When he returned to his little hut, he decided that he was going to call this a “Castle” instead of hut. Then he looked around and saw the dirty dish which had a crack in it. He thought for a moment, and smiled a little and said, “Ah, this little broken plate has a small yellow flower next to it; I will call it a golden flower.” That thought delighted him. He looked again and stared at his shaking bed which only had 3 legs. He said, “This is my hammock”. Then slowly, he made a list of words he wanted to use for his normal ordinary stuff as below:
Normal Words |
New Words |
Hut |
Castle |
Plate |
Golden flower |
Bed |
Hammock |
Normal Words |
New Words |
Hut |
Castle |
plate |
Golden flower |
bed |
hammock |
rice |
Dragon meat |
Water |
Wine |
Wild flower tea |
Coffee |
Rag cloth |
Golden robe |
Leaking Roof |
Diamond stars |
bird |
Servant |
walking |
Riding in a carriage |
hand |
Spork |
Bamboo cup |
Silver goblet |
well |
Cellar |
stone floor |
Ruby floor |
A month passed and he went to the village to shop. He used to walk slowly with his head down, now he walked straight with his chest up, proud and happy. The people saw him in the village and they asked him what had happened. He told them his stories in his new words. No one believed him. He went to the grocery market to buy two bags of dragon meat. Then he got kicked out of the store. As the door shut behind him, he realized that he wasn’t the king of the world. He returned with an empty bag, sad and lonely.