“Listening and hearing”——Maoer Bridge

Maoer Bridge 

There was a stone bridge in the northeast of Shaoxing, called Maoer Bridge, also known as the Jie Tan Bridge (means abstaining from greed). Mention of the origin of this bridge, there was an interesting story. 

According to legend, there was a big temple in the southwest of the river before the Maoer Bridge was built. Strangely enough, there were a lot of rats in the west of the river, but few rats were found in the east side. There lived a lonely old master named Yongfu in the east side of the river. He saved a kitten and took it home. After raising it for half a year, the master found out most of the mice in this area were caught by this kitten. When the abbot learned that, he borrowed the cat from Master Yongfu and agreed to return it in three days. 

That evening, the abbot put the cat in the Hall of Ceremony and hid himself outside to see how capable the cat really was. Later he found all the mice screaming and pouncing on the rush cushion, and the cat jumped to them. The mice chased the cat where ever it went, which made them panting. At that time, the cat turned around and lunged forward, caught the biggest mouse. All the other mice panicked. The Hall of Ceremony was full of dead mice overnight.

The abbot wanted to keep the precious cat all to his own, so he locked it up, and said that it had ran out of the temple and could not be found any more. Master Yongfu was too angry to say a word. A few days later, the abbot suddenly remembered that he had not fed the cat for several days, and took a bowl of left-over in the middle of the night. When the door showed a crack, the cat jumped out. But it didn’t know that there was a river right outside. It fell into the river immediately. It had nothing to eat for a few days, so it drowned after few struggles. 

Master Yongfu was so distressed that he kept saying, “If there is a bridge, the cat wouldn't die.” In his last illness, he murmured, Bridge ... Cat ... Cat ... Bridge ... 

After hearing the news, the abbot was so ashamed that he decided to make up for his mistakes after the death of Master Yongfu. He took out all his savings, and called on monks and devout men and women to build a bridge named Maoer Bridge. He hoped all the people could bear in mind this lesson.