A Short Chinese Story Made of Words of One Sound SHI

There is one short story made of words that used only one sound, shi (sounds like ‘sure’). We call it “The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions” which was written by Zhao Yuanren, a linguist in Chinese, the author of “A Grammar of Spoken Chinese”. This short story is composed of 91 words and all of the words are of the same sound “Shi”(yes). If you are not good at the tones, it was totally incomprehensible, just as a sentence of “yes yes yes yes yes”. Actually even if you know the tones, you still need to see the characters to fully understand its meaning. Maybe only Chinese can create something like this.

Let’s try to read:

施(shī)氏(shì)食(shí)狮(shī)史(shǐ)

石(shí)室(shì)诗(shī)士(shì)施(shī)氏(shì)，嗜(shì)狮(shī)，誓(shì)食(shí)十(shí)狮(shī)。

氏(shì)时(shí)时(shí)适(shì)市(shì)视(shì)狮(shī)。

十(shí)时(shí)，适(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)适(shì)市(shì)。

是(shì)时(shí)，适(shì)施(shī)氏(shì)适(shì)市(shì)。

氏(shì)视(shì)是(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)，恃(shì)矢(shǐ)势(shì)，使(shǐ)是(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)逝(shì)世(shì)。

氏(shì)拾(shí)是(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)尸(shī)，适(shì)石(shí)室(shì)。

石(shí)室(shì)湿(shī)，氏(shì)使(shǐ)侍(shì)拭(shì)石(shí)室(shì)。

石(shí)室(shì)拭(shì)，氏(shì)始(shǐ)试(shì)食(shí)是(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)。

食(shí)时(shí)，始(shǐ)识(shí)是(shì)十(shí)狮(shī)尸(shī)，实(shí)十(shí)石(shí)狮(shī)。

试(shì)释(shì)是(shì)事(shì)。

The translation of this story, according to wikipedia is as follows:

“Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”
In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

Isn’t it amazing?

If you like this post, PIN IT!

You can download this poem in our membership portal. If you are a member, Log in Here. If you are not, click here to learn more.