Guarding a Stump Waiting for Rabbit

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Informant: Tiaohao Xu, 22, M

Date Collected: 5/19/14

Genre: Proverb

Informant Data: Tianhao was born in Shanghai and raised in Ne
w Zealand. He currently attends Dartmouth College and is a member of the Dartmouth Chinese Culture Society. His parents are Chinese, he speaks Mandarin at home and he has taken Chinese 32 and 41 at Dartmouth. He is not sure where he learned this proverb, but thinks it might have been in school. This proverb was collected through an interview at a DCCS meeting.

Text/Texture 

Chinese: 守株待兔 (shǒu zhū dài tù)
Literal Translation: Guarding a stump waiting for rabbit

Free Translation: To guard a stump and wait for a rabbit. 

Context: Used to tell people not to be lazy and to work hard rather than rely on luck.

Meaning/Interpretation: There was once this guy who was sitting by a tree when a rabbit ran into the tree and died. The guy was like "I didn't even have to do anything and I got a free rabbit," so he ended up waiting by the tree for more rabbits to come. And they never did, and he waited forever and died. So don't sit around and wait for easy things that won't ever happen again.
Collector: There is an interesting interpretation about why Chinese culture (and other Eastern cultures) tends to emphasize hard work over luck that has to do with crops and climate. The success of crops grown in Europe and the West often depend primarily on the erratic weather of that season, resulting in cultures with more of an emphasis on prayer and ritual to bring in a good harvest that is out of the farmer's control. Meanwhile, rice is grown in more stable climates and requires constant regulation of conditions by the farmer, resulting in a culture that deemphasizes luck, as reflected by this proverb.