Hello, welcome back to Chinese Folk Tales.
I'm Wang Lu.
Today we have a Tibetan story titled The Treasure of Treasures.
The Tibetans have a special festival called Lingka.
It begins on May 15th and lasts several days.
During this period, people leave their homes and stay in the countryside.
Once, a group of people went to celebrate Linka in a very beautiful villa.
It was located in an out-of-the-way area.
The group included an aristocrat, an official, a merchant and a landlord.
There was also a cook and four servants.
On the first day, the four upper-class people enjoyed a big feast.
The second day they spent all their time gambling.
By the third day they were fed up with play and they turned to showing off their wealth.
The aristocrat was the first to do so.
He removed a gold pendant from his neck.
The noble told the others with pride that the pendant was worth 100,000 tails of silver.
He said it was unavailable in any market, so it was the treasure of treasures.
But the official cut him short by showing off a gold statue of Buddha.
He said it was made by Sakyamuni with his own hands.
The official had even refused to trade it to a British merchant for 100,000 taels of gold.
Then the landlord could hardly wait any longer to show off two large pearls.
The red one, he explained was a fire pearl that could protect anyone caught in a fire, and the white one, called a wind pearl, was able to keep its holder safe in a wind storm.
The landlord boasted that each of the pearls was worth at least two thousand slaves.
The rich merchant, never one to be outdone, also displayed his treasure.
It was a small silver box with a sword inside.
The sword, as tiny as an index finger, could read the mind of anyone who wanted to rob the merchant of his property and cut off their hands before they could steal anything.
The competition went on and on, and finally it became a quarrel.
Each man thought his own possession was the treasure of all treasures.
Meanwhile, each was thinking of getting rid of the others so he could own all the precious things.
In the end, a series of duels was decided upon and set for the next day.
However, none of the four wanted to risk himself, so each man ordered his servant to kill the other three opponents.
The servants, of course, didn't want to follow their master's orders.
They gathered and asked the mother-like cook for advice.
The clever woman saw the intention of the rich man and she suggested the servants pretend to be sick.
She assured them she'd settle the matter.
The next day, when the rich men urged their servants to get ready, they found all of them sick in bed.
So they had to put off the duels.
The following morning, as the four men were waiting for their breakfast, the cook rushed in with some bad news.
She said their food had run short because she didn't expect it to stay in this remote villa for so long and she hadn't brought enough.
The men left the dining room without a word. but soon their stomachs began protesting.
Someone suggested they gather wild fruit, but they could hardly find any.
Hunger deprived them of the strength to move, not to mention any discussion of their plans for the duels.
Finally, several days later, the cook brought them each a simple bowl of zampa made of roasted barley flour.
She explained that her son had just arrived with the food.
The four hungry men grabbed the bowls and ate with great relish, though they knew it was simple peasant food.
When they'd recovered, they sat down and discussed the duels again.
You've been half starved to death, the cook shouted, and you still don't know what's the real treasure of treasures.
Now the rich men found the answer themselves.
What else, indeed, could match the grain?
That's the Tibetan story, The Treasure of Treasures.
I hope you enjoyed our program, Chinese Folk Tales.
I'm Wang Lu.
Thanks for listening and bye for now.
