南轅北轍 Ancient Chinese Stories: The Ancient Chinese Tale Behind The Saying Nan Yuan Bei Zhe

Welcome back to the Ancient Chinese Story Blog. Today’s tale which I will discuss is a common idiom in the Chinese tongue’s origins story. If someone goes to you in China and says, “南轅北轍” it means one is acting in a way that would defeat one’s purpose even if you literally translate the Chinese meaning, it means “south shafts north rut.” Yet this old saying has very old roots in Chinese culture. It is a story about a traveler and how he wanted to go where it was that he went. Today’s ancient Chinese story will be translated from the modern Chinese text (sorry I don’t have the original ancient Chinese text to show everyone today) into English.

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Once upon a time, there was a man who was riding in a horse drawn carriage and traveling to go take care of some affairs; and in the carriage there was also a very big suitcase. He told the driver to of the carriage to drive non-stop and the horse ran extremely fast.

Along the road, there was an old man who saw them and asked, “Sir, you seem anxious, where do you need to go?”

The man in the carriage then replied in a loud voice, “I need to go to the state of Chu.” The old man heard and laughing he smiled and said, “You are going the wrong way. The state of Chu is in the south, how come you are going to to the north?”

“That’s alright,” The man in the carriage then said, “Can you not see? My horse runs very fast.”

“Your horse is great, but you’re path is incorrect.”

“It’s no problem, my carriage is new, it was made just last month.”

“Your carriage is brand new, but this is not the road one takes to get to Chu.”

“Old Uncle, you don’t know,” and the man in the carriage pointed to the suitcase in the back and said, “In that suitcase there’s alot of money. No matter how long the road is, I am not afraid.”

“You have lots of money, but do not forget, The direction which you are going is wrong. I can see, you should go back the direction which you came from.”

The man in the carriage heard this and irritated said, “I have already been traveling for ten days, how can you tell me to go back from where I came?” He then pointed at the carriage driver and said, “Take a look, he is very young, and the driver drives very well, you needn’t worry. Goodbye!”

After he said he told the driver to drive forward, he drove and the horse ran even faster.

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Now I always like this ancient story simply because it shows how stubborn people can be. The moral that could be found in this story besides the self defeating act is not to turn down advice so easily and if we make a mistake, to try and admit it (though in this tale though he did make quite a mistake though). We see the state of Chu, so realistically this story comes from the time of the Zhou dynasty. In ancient China, Chu was actually fairly strong but mind you in the end they as all the other warring states at the time, fell to the Qin. So we know this ancient story is over 2000 years old (quite ancient if I may so) and still in modern China today is still being used. Quite remarkable when one thinks of it.

Todays picture I took when I was in Xi An and figured that for this story would be rather ideal. This artefact originates from the Qin dynasty and was found by the Terracotta soldiers. That is all for todays ancient Chinese story. Till the next ancient tale everyone.