WEIGH,
WEIGH AWAY
Have you heard the story about the Chinese lad who became a fine and honored friend of the emperor all because of his ability to come up with an extraordinary solution to a very ordinary problem?
According to the old and often-told story, a popular Chinese emperor was presented with an elephant as a gift. He immediately wanted to know how much his fine new elephant weighed. So, he instructed his ministers to weigh the elephant. Can you imagine their despair when they searched the kingdom and discovered that there were no scales large enough to weigh an elephant? “What will we do?” they wailed. “The emperor is sure to be cross, and who knows what will happen to us.”
A young prince named Chung took sympathy on the ministers and said, “I can weigh the elephant.” With that, the prince led the elephant to the sea and placed the animal on a boat. Then, Prince Chung jumped into the water and painted a line on the boat just above the water level. He then led the elephant to the shore and filled the boat with enough stones until it sank to the painted line. The stones were then weighed to show the elephant’s weight. Prince Chung was a pretty sharp boy, wasn’t he?
By Imogene Forte
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