The Father's Jar of Silver

The sky was not yet fully light, and already the father's hands were covered in charcoal dust. He was a Cham man from a small village in the south-central part of Vietnam, where sun and wind last all year. The Cham are a people whose ancestors lived in the ancient kingdom of Champa. All his life he had farmed rice and burned charcoal to sell at the market. His hands were rough, calloused and black, and several fingers had curled from years of gripping the hoe and the knife. Yet day after day, those same hands had saved up one small silver coin after another.

Every evening, worn out from work, he dropped one more coin into the clay jar in a corner of the house. The coins met with a soft clink, like a quiet laugh. The Cham of his home region still tell the story of this man and his jar of silver. They tell, too, of something his son understood only much later.

He had a son. The boy grew up strong and handsome, but all he liked was to wander and play. In the morning, when his father had already shouldered the hoe and gone to the fields, the son was still curled up asleep under his blanket. At midday he drifted around the village and never lifted a finger. His mother doted on him and gave him whatever he wanted, so he grew lazier by the day.

The father watched his son with a heavy heart. However much wealth he left behind, he thought, it would run out if the boy's hands did not know how to work. One jar of silver, or a hundred jars, would drain away like water slipping through the fingers. He loved his son, and so he worried all the more. He wanted the boy to grow into a good man, not one who only sat waiting for wealth handed to him.

Day by day he grew older, and his strength began to fail. One day he called his wife to his bedside and spoke softly but clearly. "My dear," he said, "I love our son very much. But before I close my eyes, I only wish to see him earn his own bowl of rice. When he brings home money he made himself, my heart can rest, and I will give him the jar of silver."

The mother felt for her husband and ached for her son. Behind her husband's back, she slipped the boy a little money. She told him to go off and amuse himself for a few days, then bring it back and pretend he had earned it. The son did as his mother said. After a few days of wandering, he brought the money home to his father, even pretending to be worn out and breathing hard.

The father held the handful of money and looked it over for a long while. Then he strolled into the yard and threw it all into the pond in front of the house. The coins dropped in with a plop and sank. The water rippled in a few rings, then lay still again. The son watched, unmoved, without the slightest regret. The father quietly shook his head. This was not money the boy had made with his own hands.

This time his voice was sad, but gentle. "My son," he said, "go now. Work for other people and feed yourself. Come back to your father when the money in your hand is your own."

The son put on his coat and left, his head hanging low. For the first time in his life, he had to look after himself. No one put his meals into his hands, and no one spoiled him. He walked on until hunger drove him to ask for work as a hired hand with a well-off family in the area. Day after day he milled paddy to strip the husks and pounded rice in the mortar. Every job was heavy and grimy.

At first his hands blistered and stung. His back ached, and sweat ran down him in streams. Each day he was paid only two bowls of rice. He ate sparingly and put a little aside each time. So it went for three long months, and his once soft hands slowly hardened and grew strong. He saved up 90 bowls of rice and sold them for a small handful of money.

That handful was not worth much. But it was his own sweat, three months of an aching back and weary hands. He clutched it tight, and it felt more precious than anything he had ever owned.

He hurried home and joyfully set the money down before his father. The father was sitting by the hearth, warming himself at a steady fire. He took the money, glanced at it for a moment, and suddenly threw it straight into the flames.

The son cried out. Quick as lightning, he reached into the hearth and swept the coins out of the fire. He held them tight against his chest, his face pale with worry and dismay. They were three months of hard labor, and he could not bear to lose even one.

The father looked at his son and broke into laughter. It was a warm, easy laugh, as if he had just set down a burden carried in his heart for a long time. His voice trembled, yet it was full of joy. "Ah," he said, "now I trust you."

He took his son's hand, a hand now calloused from milling paddy and pounding rice. He spoke slowly, every word clear. "The other day, the money was not yours. When I threw it into the pond, it meant nothing to you. Today, the money came from your own hands, and when I threw it into the fire, you rushed to save it. That is because you have learned to treasure coins soaked in your own sweat."

Then he turned his eyes to the jar of silver in the corner, the jar he had scrimped to fill over a lifetime. He said to his son, "From today, this jar of silver is yours. But no matter how full a jar of silver is, spend from it long enough and one day it runs dry. Only one jar of silver never runs dry, and that is your own two hands."

The son looked down at his hands. Once they had known only play. Now they were calloused and rough, just like his father's hands, black with charcoal. Out in the yard, the sun had climbed high and spread its gold over the garden. In the corner of the house, the jar of silver sat quietly where it had always been.

But now he understood. The real treasure had never been inside the jar. It lay in his own two hands, the warm hands that had just reached into the fire to save the fruit of his own labor.