SuaveG – The Gentle Path

Chinese mythology, folktales, and literature

power

  • Han Feizi – Chapter 49

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    This Han Feizi ‑ Chapter 49 (Five Vermin) argues governance must adapt to changing eras. It denounces five harmful social groups sapping state strength, advocating strict law‑reward‑punishment and prioritizing farming‑warfare over empty moral rhetoric.

  • Han Feizi – Chapter 34.1

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    This Legalist excerpt from Han Feizi ‑ Chapter 34.1 argues rulers should rely on power instead of moral persuasion. Threats should be eliminated early, and ministers controlled, as illustrated by multiple historical metaphors.

  • The Owl and the Phoenix

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    This interprets the owl and phoenix parable from Zhuangzi ‑ Autumn Floods. Huizi, fearing Zhuangzi will seize his ministerial post, is compared to an owl guarding a rotten rat, blind to the noble bird’s disdain for worldly power.

  • Zhuangzi’s Survival Wisdom for Chaos, Power, and Toxic Relationships

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    This commentary on Zhuangzi ‑ Renjianshi explores survival amid chaos and power. It explains key ideas: Fasting of the Mind, outward compliance, and the paradox that “uselessness brings great utility” to preserve inner integrity.

  • Han Feizi – Chapter 28.2

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    This excerpt comes from Han Feizi · Achievements, a pivotal chapter on the decisive role of political authority in governance. Through metaphors like short trees on high mountains, ships carrying immense weight and the contrast between Yao and Jie, Han Fei argues personal talent and virtue are secondary to positional power. Rulers must consolidate…

  • Ghosts, Power, and Morality: The Hidden Depths of the “Ghosts Weeping”

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    This essay interprets Liaozhai’s Ghosts Weeping against the Xie‑Qian Rebellion. It analyzes turncoat official Wang Qixiang, arguing Pu Songling uses ghosts to satirize worldly power and stress that virtue outweighs secular authority.

  • Riverview Fairy – To Comrade Ding Ling [Mao’s Poems]

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    –Mao Zedong, December 1936 Red flags on walls in sunset glow,West winds sweep o’er the lone fort’s brow.Bao’an sees new faces all around.In cave-halls feasts abound,For one just freed from prison’s bound.

  • Han Feizi

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    Han Feizi is the title of a foundational philosophical text and the culminating work of pre-Qin Legalist thought. Although attributed to Han Fei (c. 280–233 BCE), a prince of the state of Han during the Warring States period, the book was compiled posthumously by later scholars who collected his surviving writings and supplemented them…

  • Ma Liang and His Magic Brush

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    Once upon a time, there was a poor boy named Ma Liang who was naturally clever and loved drawing from a young age. Due to his family’s poverty, he couldn’t afford a brush; instead, he drew with tree branches on hillsides, grass roots dipped in river water by the banks, and pieces of charcoal…