The Frog at the Bottom of the Well

Historically, many cultures around the world have attached special importance to frogs. They have been  identified as the familiars of witches, Gods and Goddesses, even warriors (see Homer's "Mice and Frogs"). Out of the estimated 8.7 million species on the Earth, frogs even have their own Biblical Egyptian Plague and who can honestly say they don't know the world's most famous amphibian, Kermit?

In considering frogs, let us not forget about non-Western perspectives. In Chinese there are about 5000 commonly used idioms or 成語 (chéngyǔ) and nearly all of them have a background story. For instance, the expression 坐井觀天 (zuòjǐngguāntīan) literally means "to view the sky from the bottom of a well." Even assuming fluency, without the background story that I am about to tell you this expression would not make a lot of sense.

The ancient Chinese Philosopher Zhuangzi, who lived during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (about 4th century BCE), was once fond of telling the story of "The Frog and the Turtle." This Frog happened to live at the bottom of a shallow well. All in all, he was very happy and very pleased with himself. In comparison to the other inhabitants of the well, the crabs, worms, and tadpoles, he felt himself to be much better off. In fact, upon meeting the Turtle from the Eastern Sea, he proclaimed to be "lord of his trough." The Turtle thought this to be very odd and told the Frog about his home, the Eastern Sea. "Imagine," he said, "a place where neither the flooding of rivers nor yearlong droughts have any affect. The Eastern Sea is wider than a thousand miles and deeper than a thousand fathoms. No, it is the greatest happiness to live in the Sea." After hear the Turtle's words, the Frog became uncomfortable and, for the first time, aware of how small his well really was.

After hearing this story, do you now know what it means when someone says someone views the sky from the bottom of a well?… It means that their worldview is narrow and/or they have limited experience.

I hope you enjoyed this story and thank you for reading it.