The White Pheasant

A single white feather trembled at the mouth of a woven basket.

The bird inside tilted its head to listen to the footsteps. The party was walking a very long road. Each time it stopped, the person who kept the bird checked that there was enough water to drink and that the sunshade still sat straight.

This was not a hunting trip. The white pheasant was being carried as a gift.

An old Vietnamese legend tells of the days of the Hùng Kings, whom Vietnamese people honor as their ancestors. In the legend, the king sent a party of envoys from Việt Thường to visit the Zhou court, far away to the north. They carried a white pheasant. Its plumage is as bright as a small cloud, and against the brown of the basket and the dark of the travelers' clothes a few white feathers stand out clearly.

The party guarded the gift through all those days away from home. Every morning they packed their bags, checked the woven basket and set out again. The white feather at the mouth of the basket swayed with each step.

At last they reached the place they were bound for.

The people who came out to meet them saw that the visitors had brought a white bird as a gift. But when the two sides spoke their greetings, everyone was taken aback. The speech of the Việt Thường party was different from the speech of the people here.

One person spoke.

A second person listened and repeated it in another language.

A third passed the words on one more time.

A greeting went through several people before it reached the one it was meant for. The reply came back the same way, one person after another. At this meeting, both sides needed a great deal of patience.

Nobody hurried. Each person waited for the other to finish. When something was unclear, they asked again. When a speech ran long, they broke it into short points. Little by little, the two sides came to understand each other.

The Duke of Zhou asked where the visitors had come from and why they had crossed such a long distance. The Việt Thường envoys answered through the interpreters.

They said that for three years their homeland had seen no long, wild rain and no gale, and no great waves had risen on the sea. People of old took a calm sky and a still sea as a sign that a person of virtue had appeared in some distant place. So they had brought the white pheasant to pay a visit and to give as a gift.

Their greetings had passed through many voices and still arrived. Beside the woven basket, the white feather stirred again. The small gift in the middle of the meeting reminded everyone how far the visitors had come to be there.

The Duke of Zhou asked more about how the Việt Thường people lived. Words were passed along many times, and each side heard about the other's life. What is familiar in one place may be strange in another. So every question was listened to and answered with care.

When the meeting was complete, the Duke of Zhou gave the visitors some gifts in return and let them go home.

The Việt Thường party packed their bags. But in a strange land, one road can look so much like another that they are hard to tell apart. They passed one turning after another and still found no sign that said for certain where home lay.

They could not find the way back.

The news reached the Duke of Zhou. He had five special carts made. The story says that however a cart was turned, the pointer on it still pointed south.

The five carts were brought out. They rolled first, and the people and their bags followed. At every turning, the direction of the pointer did not change.

Then the landscape began to look more familiar.

The shape of a mountain made one traveler jump up. A river reminded another of the river near home. Even the wind no longer smelled strange. One familiar thing after another appeared, clearer than any sign.

At last they reached their own country.

The people who came out to meet them saw the five carts, which had pointed so steadily south, at the head of the column. Behind the carts came the Việt Thường travelers who had walked the whole long way.

When the wheels stopped on the soil of home, nobody needed to look at the pointer any more.

They knew the mountains, the river and the wind. South was no longer a mark on a cart. South was right there in the familiar landscape opening out before them.