The same rice feeds various kinds of people (slang)

These days as we are watching closely the aftermath of the disasters in Japan, I believe many of us have shed tears like some of my friends told me on seeing the miserable scenes. On the other hand, however, we’ve heard different remarks, though very rare, that kind of gloated over this disaster out of some blind “nationalism” 民族主義(min2 zu2 zhu3 yi4) originating from the past history of wars.

As a Taiwanese saying goes, 一樣米養百樣人(yi2 yang4 mi3 yang3 bai3 yang4 ren2), the same rice feeds various kinds of people. Such remarks, though disagreeable, are no surprise at all. We have saints like Mother Teresa, but we also have merciless killers like Hitler. Even the same parents will bring up children with extreme differences. With this, we have another expression in Taiwanese--五隻手指不同長(wu3 zhi she2 zhi3 bu4 tong2 chang2), even your five fingers are of different length.

Basically Confucianism 儒家(ru2 jia) believes人性本善(ren2 xing4 ben3 shan4), people are born with good nature. 孟子(meng4 zi3) once said 「惻隱之心，人皆有之」(ce4 yin3 zhi zin, ren2 jie you2 zhi), everyone has a惻隱之心, which means a heart of sympathy and compassion. That’s why you feel sorry for others when seeing them in misery. You shed tears and help them.

With this惻隱之心, you share others’ suffering and can’t bear to hurt others. When you see others fall, the first thing that comes to your mind is to offer help, but not exercise you brain doing the complicated recall of what wrong this person, or his great grandfather might have done to you or your great grandfather.

If we act on the blind nationalism and accumulate all the historical hatred, we might all end up feuding with each other. A Jew should spit on a German for some ancestors of his have been killed cruelly by some of the German’s forefathers. Chinese people have to spit a lot since they had the invasion of “Eight-Nation Alliance” 八國聯軍(ba guo2 lian2 jun) in 1990 and the Japanese invasion during World War II. And Taiwanese people should be “happy” about this quake because our great grandfathers had suffered a lot during the Japanese-ruling era from 1895 to 1945.

Should we? Are we ?

Indeed, 一樣米養百樣人. And we all are sure to be people of different characters and notions. For those who make such apathetic remarks, they might have forgotten that same things could happen to them. And what good is it if we humans record the history but learn nothing from it?

一樣: the same

養: feed

百樣: a hundred kinds of; various kinds of

民族主義=民族主义

一樣米養百樣人=一样米养百样人

五隻手指不同長=五只手指不同长

惻隱之心=恻隐之心

八國聯軍=八国联军