There was once a frog that lived in a well. One day, a soft-shelled turtle came by and told him about the sea. “The sea?”, said the frog. “Hah! It’s nothing but paradise in here. I assure you, there is no place in the world that is better than inside this well.”
So goes the story of “The Frog at the Bottom of a Well” (井底之蛙), a tale which a mother in Nanjing chose to tell her son while they were both trapped together at the bottom of a manhole this Mother’s Day.
This 8 May, Zhang Li’s son accidentally fell into a waste-water well exposed by an open manhole cover while out playing. Fortunately his mother was nearby and wasted no time in jumping in after him.
But the two of them were now trapped in the constricted space. Zhang quickly alerted authorities using her smartphone and the two of them waited for rescue.
Finally, when first responders arrived on the scene, Zhang’s son was first to cry out. “Save my mother”, was his call.
But it had been quite a long wait, during which Zhang had spied a frog crouched on the well’s wall. To pass the time, she told her child the origin of the idiom, “The Frog at the Bottom of a Well”.
It’s the story of a person with limited outlook, able only to see the little patch of sky above.
Zhang said that during the ordeal, she also hummed to her son his favourite song, “Lone Brave Man” (孤勇), reports The Paper.
Online reaction to the incident has been quite moving, especially given it taking place on Mother’s Day, making those commenting sigh about the greatness of maternal love.
Speaking with local Nanjing media, Zhang said, “I want to say that in that case, I believe every child’s parents would be desperate”.
