Thach Sung and the Chipped Pot

In the corner of a poor family's kitchen sat a small clay pot. It was old, and a piece had broken off its rim. People called it a mẻ kho, a chipped pot for braising. Day after day it simmered salty braised fish, over and over, until it was black with smoke. No one gave it a thought. Yet this plain, chipped pot was the very thing that decided the fate of the richest man in the region. Vietnamese families have told this story for generations, each place a little differently.

Long ago, there lived a man named Thạch Sùng. In those days he and his wife were very poor. They lived in a small hut near the market. Some days they ate, and some days they went hungry. The couple skimped on food and clothes to save every coin they could. The mẻ kho in the corner of the kitchen was theirs. Every day it braised a pot of fish to see them through a meal.

Then one day, standing on the riverbank, Thạch Sùng saw two water buffalo wade up out of the river and lock horns on the bank. He looked at the sky, at the clouds, at the rising water. Deep down he guessed that a great flood was coming. So he took all the savings he had gathered for so long and bought up all the rice he could. He stored it carefully in his house.

Sure enough, not long after, the rain came pouring down. The river rose and spilled over the fields, sweeping the crops away. The whole rice harvest was lost, and hunger spread everywhere. A single grain of rice was suddenly as precious as gold. People ran here and there looking for something to eat. That was when Thạch Sùng opened his store of rice and began to sell. With rice so scarce, its price shot up many times over. In a single hungry season, the poor man from beside the market became rich beyond counting.

With money in hand, he bought land and built a house. But he did not stop there. His trade grew larger every day, and his wealth kept piling higher. Before long Thạch Sùng was the richest man in the region. He had a tall house with wide doors, and his servants were as many as a festival crowd.

His house was now magnificent. The curtains were silk, and brocade draped the beams. The roof tiles were as clear as crystal, and the courtyard was paved with polished gemstones. Inside stood a tree of bright red coral. There was a strange jewel that stayed cool in summer and warmed the hand in winter. There was even a fine horse that could gallop the longest roads without tiring. Whatever was most beautiful and most rare in the world, the house of Thạch Sùng seemed to have it.

There was just one thing. In that grand new house, everything was made of gold and silver, and the plainest things were brass. As for the smoke-blackened mẻ kho with its chipped rim from his poor days, he had long, long ago stopped thinking of it at all. He had forgotten his poor days completely. He had forgotten that he had once owned only a clay pot for braising fish to get by.

Now that he was rich, Thạch Sùng grew fond of showing off his wealth. He threw lavish feasts and invited guests from far and wide, so they would marvel at the treasures in his house. This made him happy. The more he showed off, the more he felt above everyone else.

In those days there was another rich man, a man surnamed Vương. Hearing that Thạch Sùng loved to flaunt his riches, Vương would not be outdone. When the two met, each insisted that his own house was the richest and his own treasures the finest. One word led to another, and at last they agreed on a wager. Each man would bring out his riches to compare. Whoever lost would hand his whole fortune to the winner.

On the appointed day, guests crowded in until the courtyard was packed. One by one, the precious things were named. If Vương had silks, Thạch Sùng had silks too. If Vương had jewels and ivory, the house of Thạch Sùng was not short of them either. Whatever Vương named, Thạch Sùng calmly had his servants carry out that very thing, even finer and more precious. On and on it went, item after item, and Thạch Sùng did not lose on a single one.

The more they compared, the more pleased with himself Thạch Sùng became. He beat his chest and declared in a loud, confident voice that his house lacked nothing in this world. He dared Vương to name anything at all. If his house did not have it, he would admit defeat and hand over his entire fortune.

Just then, someone sitting beside Vương leaned close and whispered a few words in his ear. Vương listened and smiled. Then he said slowly that the thing he wanted to see was not gold and not jewels. It was only a mẻ kho. It was a clay pot for braising fish, with a chipped rim, the kind only the very poorest homes still used.

At that, Thạch Sùng froze. He sent his household running to search everywhere. But in that whole gilded estate, they searched until their eyes ached and could not find a single mẻ kho. He had forgotten all about it long, long ago. His storehouses were piled high with gold and silver, yet there was not one plain, chipped clay pot.

Thạch Sùng had lost the wager. He lost over the cheapest thing of all, a thing he had once owned and long since forgotten. As agreed, all his wealth, his houses, his fields and his gardens passed to Vương. In a matter of hours, the richest man in the region lost everything he had ever had.

Sitting alone, Thạch Sùng could not stop grieving. He mourned all the gold, silver and jewels. But what he mourned most was the little mẻ kho of the old days. If only he had remembered the poor years that had raised him. The regret clung to him and would not ease.

The old tale says that because he could not let go of his loss, Thạch Sùng turned into a small creature clinging to the wall. People call it the thạch sùng. It is the little house lizard that crawls on the walls and ceilings of every home. And now and then, the thạch sùng clicks its tongue a few soft times. It sounds full of regret, as if it were still searching for a mẻ kho lost long ago.

That story gave Vietnamese people a common saying: Thạch Sùng còn thiếu mẻ kho. It means that Thạch Sùng still lacks a mẻ kho. However rich a person may be, hardly anyone in this life has everything.

So when a thạch sùng crawls along a wall at night and clicks its tongue a few times, people have long said it is Thạch Sùng himself. He is still grieving for his mẻ kho. It is the tiny chipped clay pot he forgot, in the days when he was so busy showing off.