The Chinese Mirror

 

"Once upon a time there was a Chinese peasant, who would go to the city to sell the rice crop he and his wife had been working on. His wife asked him not to forget to bring him a comb.

The man came to town and once there sold the harvest. After doing so, he met and met with several companions and went on to drink and celebrate what he achieved. After that, and still a little disoriented, the peasant remembered that his wife had asked him to bring him something. However, he did not remember what, so he went to a store and bought the product that caught his eye the most. It was a mirror, with which he returned home. After giving it to his wife, he went back to work in the field.

The young wife looked in the mirror, and suddenly began to cry. Her mother asked her why, in such a reaction, to which her daughter passed the mirror and replied that the cause of her tears was that her husband had brought with her another woman, young and beautiful. Her mother also looked in the mirror, and after doing so she replied to her daughter that she had nothing to worry about, since she was an old woman."

A story of Chinese origin, by anonymous author. It is a very brief narrative that has different possible interpretations, but that among other things tells us about how we see ourselves reflected in the world, and the difference between how we believe we are and how we really are, often underestimating or overestimating ourselves.

To understand the story it is necessary to take into account that none of the characters had ever been reflected in a mirror, not knowing what they actually see. Thus, the wife is not able to understand that the beautiful young woman she sees is herself, while the mother also does not see that the old woman she sees is her. It is also noted that while the former worries about what she considers that what she sees in the reflection is more beautiful than herself, the second critically underestimates him, practically mocking his own image.

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