The Tiger Asks About Wisdom

The tiger at the edge of the forest is covered in long black stripes, and he looks proud and fierce. The water buffalo out in the field chews grass gently all day long, yet the front of its upper jaw is completely bare, without a single front tooth. Here are two large animals, and each one carries a strange mark on its body.

The old tellers say that both marks come from the same afternoon and the same story. It is a story so funny and so clever that it has been told again and again for many generations, and it still makes people laugh.

This is a Vietnamese folktale. For a long time, Vietnamese children have learned it at school. The tale has no dates and no named places. There is only a farmer, a buffalo, a tiger, and a bundle of straw.

Long ago, on a fine sunny afternoon, a farmer was plowing a rice field at the edge of a forest. He was a small man in a faded brown shirt, and his back was soaked with sweat. His buffalo was enormous, with curving horns and thick, muscled shoulders. It plodded along pulling the plow, step by steady step, just as the farmer told it to.

From the edge of the forest, a tiger sat watching. The longer he watched, the stranger it seemed. That man was tiny, with thin arms and thin legs. He had no horns, no claws and no fangs. Yet that huge buffalo obeyed him meekly. When told to go, it went, and when told to stop, it stopped. The tiger puzzled over it and could find no answer. So he crept closer and waited until the farmer stopped to rest. Then he went up to the buffalo and spoke in a low voice.

"Brother Buffalo," said the tiger, "so big and so strong, and still that tiny man gives all the orders. Even when he hits, there is no fighting back, not even a little. Why put up with it?"

The buffalo sighed and leaned close to the tiger's ear. "There is one thing the tiger does not know," it whispered. "Humans may be small, but humans have wisdom."

The buffalo had said trí khôn, the Vietnamese word for wisdom. When the tiger heard those words, he was dumbfounded. Wisdom? What was that? He had never heard of such a thing. He was so curious that he kept on asking what wisdom looked like, whether it was big or small, and whether the buffalo could show him some.

The buffalo shook its head. "I have no wisdom. Wisdom belongs to that man over there. Anyone who wants to see it should go and ask him straight out."

So the tiger went eagerly over to the farmer and asked him very politely. "Excuse me, sir. I hear that you have a thing called wisdom. What is it like? May I see it, just once, so that I know?"

The farmer stopped working and looked the tiger up and down. Then he scratched his head, as if he were terribly sorry. "Oh, what a shame. I left my wisdom at home. Let me run back and fetch it to show. But once I am gone, what if a hungry tiger eats my buffalo? Then what would I plow with?"

The tiger was burning to see wisdom and had no patience for such worries. He brushed them aside. "Go on home and get it, sir. I promise not to touch the buffalo."

The farmer pretended to think it over for a while. Then he said, "Here is an idea. Suppose a certain tiger lets me tie him to that tree for a little while. Then I can run home for my wisdom with an easy mind. As soon as I have it, I will come straight back and untie the rope, and the tiger can see it with his own eyes."

The tiger thought to himself that a rope was nothing at all. He was bursting with strength, and no rope in the world could hold him. All that mattered was getting a good look at wisdom. So he nodded at once and lay down obediently to be tied.

The farmer took a thick rope and tied the tiger to the trunk of an old tree. He took his time, laying one loop over another, and pulled every knot tight and firm. The tiger lay still and waited. Inside, he was thrilled: at last he was about to see wisdom.

When the knots were done, the farmer dusted off his hands and stood up. But he did not run home. He walked straight over to a pile of dry straw at the edge of the field and gathered up a big armful.

This was the moment when real wisdom appeared.

The farmer set the bundle of straw alight and held it near the tiger. He laughed out loud and called out in a ringing voice, "Here is my wisdom! Here is my wisdom!"

The tiger jumped, completely bewildered. The burning straw was hot, and thick smoke rose all around the tree. The tiger panicked. He thrashed this way and that, tugging at the rope with loud thumps, his head turning back and forth. He could not understand what this strange wisdom was, or why it was so hot. All his proud, fierce airs of a moment ago had vanished. There was only a flustered tiger left, half frightened and half furious.

The buffalo stood close by. It watched the mighty tiger, so grand a moment before, now hopping about in alarm, and it simply could not hold back its laughter. It laughed and laughed, rocking from side to side, until it toppled over and rolled on the ground. Unluckily, as it fell, its upper jaw struck a stone. Clonk! And just like that, every front tooth in its upper jaw fell out, and not a single one was left.

At that very moment, the scorched rope snapped. The tiger broke free and bolted deep into the forest. He ran without stopping and never dared to look back.

The farmer stood and watched him go, dusting off his hands. Then, in no hurry at all, he went back to help his buffalo up. He led it off to plow again, as if nothing had happened.

After that afternoon, the two animals carried two marks with them, and they carry them to this very day.

The tiger got away, but across his golden coat now ran long, dark streaks, where the rope had rubbed and where the burning straw had flared. Those marks would not wash away. They stayed with the tiger always, and they passed on to his children and grandchildren. Ever since then, the tale goes, every tiger has been born with long black stripes on its body. They are the traces of one foolish afternoon long ago.

As for the buffalo, from the day it laughed itself over and struck that stone, the front of its upper jaw stayed bare. It tears off grass by pressing its lower front teeth against its smooth upper gum, then chews slowly and gently. People of old said that this is why, even today, every buffalo is the same. Look into the mouth of any buffalo, and the front of its upper jaw has not a single tooth.

Two of the biggest animals in the Vietnamese countryside, one proud in the forest and one hard at work in the fields, turn out to carry the memory of the same story. It is the story of a small farmer with a quick mind. He beat a big, strong tiger, not with fangs or claws, but with nothing more than a bundle of straw and a head that knew how to think.

And whenever someone says "Here is my wisdom," we smile and remember that afternoon, the striped tiger vanishing into the deep forest and the toothless buffalo still calmly chewing grass in the field.