Jiang Ziya's Straight Hook

A fishing line drops into a stream. At the end of the line hangs a needle.

The needle is straight, like any sewing needle, without the slightest bend at the tip. Nor, it seems, is there any bait on it.

The line lies still in the water from morning until the sun starts to sink. No fish bites. Of course no fish bites.

The man holding the rod is old. He sits on a rock by the bank, his back to the road, facing the water. The next day he comes back to the same spot. And the day after that. The same short rod, the same long line, the same straight needle.

This tale is told in an old Chinese novel called The Investiture of the Gods, written around the 16th century. The stream in the story is called the Panxi. It flows into the Wei River, in the land of Xiqi.

The old man's name was Jiang Shang, and his courtesy name was Ziya. He also had a Taoist name, Feixiong, which means flying bear. That odd name will come back later.

Before this, he had lived for a while in the eastern capital, where he spoke his mind plainly. Then he went west to live quietly. Every day he read an old scripture called the Yellow Court Classic. He kept out of quarrels, kept himself steady, and waited.

What he was waiting for, nobody yet knew.

Then one day, someone came walking by.

It was a woodcutter named Wu Ji, firewood on his shoulder, singing carelessly as he went. He stopped to watch the old man for fun. Then he looked down at the line. Then he looked more closely.

At the end of the line there really was a needle. No bend. And, as far as he could see, no bait.

Wu Ji burst out laughing. As the saying goes, he told the old man, it takes sweet bait to catch a big fish. Then he offered some kindly advice. Heat the needle in the fire until it glows red. Hammer it into the curve of a hook. Put sweet bait on it, and tie on a float to show when a fish bites. That was how to catch fish. Sitting like this, how long would he have to wait?

He was right. Nobody catches fish with a straight needle.

The old man set down his rod. His answer is something people have repeated for hundreds of years.

Why should he take a fish by crooked means, he asked. That was no work for an honest man. He would rather take what came straight than beg for what came crooked.

Then he added one more thing, the heart of the whole story. He was not fishing for fish at all.

He recited a few lines to the woodcutter. A short rod and a long line, keeping watch over a bend of the Panxi. What is in my heart, who could ever know? I fish only for a king and for the ministers of the court. I give no thought to the fish in the water.

Wu Ji laughed again, hoisted his firewood, and went on his way.

Both men meant every word. But one of them was talking about a fish. The other was talking about a whole life.

Not far from that stream, in Xiqi, there lived a ruler called King Wen of Zhou.

He had a high terrace built, called the Lingtai, to watch the wind and the sky and foresee disasters that might fall on his people. The terrace was finished within a month.

One night, the king slept up on that terrace. And he had a dream.

In the dream, a tiger with a white forehead came out of the southeast. A pair of wings grew from its sides, and it flew straight toward his tent. Then a great noise rang out behind the terrace, and a beam of light shot up into the sky. The king woke with a start.

The next morning, he told the dream to his official, San Yisheng, whose face lit up. This was the luckiest of omens, he said. A tiger with wings, read rightly, is a bear. The omen meant that a man of great talent would soon come to be a pillar of the king's rule.

A flying bear.

Not long after, when spring came, the king went out beyond the city for a stroll in the countryside. Along the way, his party heard singing from the riverbank, then woodcutters singing in the forest. Their song went roughly like this. The phoenix is not missing, and the qilin is not lost. The only pity is that people are careless about the road that leads to a worthy man. A little farther on, Wu Ji himself came along with a load of firewood. He told the king about the old man by the Panxi and his Taoist name. Feixiong, the flying bear.

When the king heard those words, he fell silent. The dream on the Lingtai and the name by the stream fit together like two halves of one story.

What the king did next is the part worth telling. He did not send anyone to fetch the old man.

On San Yisheng's advice, the king stayed in his palace and kept a vegetarian fast for three days, keeping himself pure. On the fourth day, he bathed, set his robes and cap in good order, and set out himself. He went to invite, not to summon.

This time the party traveled to the music of pipes and drums, moving at an easy pace through the forest.

At the edge of the forest by the stream, the party stopped. The old man was still there, his back to the road, facing the water, rod in hand. Behind him now stood carriages and horses, banners and fans, the whole procession of a king. In front of him there was still only the water. He did not turn around.

The king stepped forward and asked very softly whether the master was content sitting there.

The old man turned and set down his rod. He apologized for not knowing the king was coming, and for not going out to meet him.

And he refused. He said he was only an old man with no talent to speak of. His learning was not enough to bring peace to a country, and his skill at arms was not enough to defend one. How could he dare take on such a great task?

The king would not accept that. San Yisheng spoke up too, again and again, until at last the old man agreed to stand up. That day, Jiang Ziya accepted the post of chief minister.

The old book records one more detail plainly, and it is the one that makes people go quiet. In the year he left the stream, he was 80 years old.

At 80, he began the greatest work of his life. In all his years by that stream, he never went asking anyone, and never begged a favor. Not once did he bend his needle. He only sat there, read his book, and waited. And when the day finally came, it was the king who had to cross the forest to find him.

On the way back, there was one small, sweet moment. The king invited the old man to ride in the royal carriage. The old man refused, saying that would break with proper custom. They went back and forth for a while. In the end the king rode in the carriage, and the old man rode a horse beside him. From then on, nobody sat fishing on that bend of the Panxi.

Long ago, the story traveled far, all the way to Vietnam. People in Vietnam gave the old man a warmer name, ông Lã Vọng. And they did not just hear the story and leave it there. They brought him into communal houses, temples and shrines. They shaped him in plaster on the walls, painted him in pictures, and carved him in wood and stone.

Take the old Tĩnh Lự Pagoda in Bắc Ninh. It keeps a stone stele set up in 1648. On its side, a stonecarver long ago cut the scene of King Wen going to seek a worthy man. In Phú Thọ, at the Hùng Lô communal house, people painted the old man at his fishing. The house is a place of worship for the Hùng Kings, whom Vietnamese people honor as their ancestors.

There is also an old saying about him, in which he goes by another name, Jiang Taigong. When Jiang Taigong goes fishing, only the willing take the hook.

Sometimes, on the wall or a wooden beam of an old communal house, a tiny old man sits on a rock, his rod held out over the water. At the end of his line, there may be no hook at all.

And the old man is still sitting there, waiting, just as he did that day.