Deceptive Habits

AnonymousBashu Publishing House · ChinaJul 2024

2.3

Word count: 698 words
Chapters: 6

Summary

During the Dali era, at Tianjin Bridge in the Eastern Capital, there was a beggar with no hands who held a brush between his right toes to copy sutras and beg for money. Before writing, he would toss the brush up again and again, over a foot high, and never once drop it. His writing was in the official kai script, better than what most people could write by hand.

Editor's review

This short piece comes from the Tang dynasty notebook tradition. It describes a beggar with no hands by Tianjin Bridge in the Eastern Capital during the Dali era, who holds a brush between his right toes, tosses and catches it, and writes sutras to earn money. In only a few dozen characters, the text brings the movements, manner, and quality of the writing vividly before the eye. What moves readers most is not the "marvel" but the "ordinary": a man whom fate has stripped of his hands does a daily task to a degree that even those accustomed to holding a brush cannot match. Presented by Bashu Press in a simplified-character collated edition, it is short and well suited as an introductory sample of ancient notebooks and character sketches. Read it not for dramatic plot but for attention to detail: tossing the brush repeatedly without missing is practice; writing in official kai better than most people's handwriting is skill; using a foot in place of a hand to beg for money is livelihood. Together these form a restrained but powerful character sketch. Suitable for dipping into during a commute, between classes, or ten minutes before bed, and also for close reading, imitation writing, and classroom discussion of classical Chinese short pieces.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy ancient notebooks, character sketches, and short classical Chinese stories
Middle school students and Chinese teachers who need close-reading materials for short classical Chinese texts
Readers interested in Tang dynasty urban life and records of people from the lower classes
Office workers who want to read a short story and make notes in fragmented time

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a complete plot, long-form narrative, or extended development of a character's fate
Readers with weak classical Chinese who are unwilling to read with annotations
Readers who prefer the pacing and strong conflict of modern fiction

Reading tips

First read it through once without worrying about full understanding, then use the annotations to work through the meanings of words such as "tossing the brush" and "official kai" sentence by sentence.
Circle the two places "tossing the brush again and again" and "writing in the official kai script," and consider how the author uses detail to shape character.
After reading, try retelling the story in modern Chinese, then compare what the original omits and what it highlights.
If used in class, students can discuss whether the author's attitude in this "remarkable person" narrative is curiosity or respect.

About the publisher

Bashu Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Bashu Publishing House is a publisher centered on collating and publishing classical Chinese cultural texts, with its main publishing areas covering classical literature, Eastern philosophy, ancient poetry, and educational classics. Its library currently holds 1,075 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Renjian Cihua, and Out to the Frontier, involving authors such as Cao Xueqin, Wang Xizhi, Wang Guowei, Wang Changling, Liu Xie, and Yan Yu. These reflect the publisher's focus on literary classics, poetry criticism, and philosophical readings. Its publishing character lies in working around ancient texts and canonical works, with attention to textual collation and presentation. Public information on its more detailed publishing background and series plans is limited; this introduction is based only on the library's book information.

版权信息
正文一
正文二
正文三
正文四
正文五

FAQ

What is this short piece mainly about?

It is about a handless beggar by Tianjin Bridge in the Eastern Capital during the Dali era who holds a brush between his right toes to write sutras and earn money. The text specifically notes that before writing he repeatedly tosses the brush high and catches it steadily, and that the characters he writes resemble official kai and are better than ordinary people's handwriting. The whole piece sketches the man's skill and livelihood in extremely spare language.

Does reading this require a strong foundation in classical Chinese?

No. The text is extremely short and has few obscure words; the main difficulties are a small number of terms such as "official kai" and "tossing the brush." Reading it once or twice with the annotations in the collated edition is enough to grasp the general meaning, making it suitable as introductory practice with classical Chinese short pieces.

Why is it said to be suitable as close-reading material?

Because it is short but information-dense, with almost every sentence containing details worth analyzing: the action of tossing the brush, the evaluation of the handwriting, the method of begging for money. Readers can practice finding key words, analyzing character, and discerning the author's attitude within a limited text, with little burden and easily visible results.

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About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.