In
Chinese, known as 此地无银三百两 (ci di wu yin san bai liang)
*. A
proverb meaning to get oneself in
trouble by one's own actions; to
shoot oneself in the
foot; to put one's
foot into one's
mouth.
The story behind this proverb is that in a certain part of
China, there was a rich
businessman and
smuggler who had a lot of
money.
Jealous of his
wealth, he decided to bury his
earthly treasure under ground. But after he buried it, he begin to
worry that someone would dig the ground looking for
treasure.
(In those days, many people hid their money
underground, since there were few
reliable banks for
ordinary folk, and also because of
war. Therefore, many
treasure hunters dug up entire fields to look for
easy money.)
So the businessman put up a
sign on the
land.
| |
---------------------
| |
| 此地无银三百两 |
| |
| (This land does |
| not have three |
| hundred taels |
| of silver!) |
| |
---------------------
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
``'''''`..'| |..``''""`'''`''`'
Needless to say, he lost all the wealth he had hid under the ground.
Various parodies of this proverb are:
"This planet does not have 3000 litres of water!" -
allseeingeye, on
Mars
"This desert does not have 3 tons of WMD!" - by
tdent
Related links:
"
I did not have sexual relations with that woman" - Bill Clinton.