The lazy woman died of starvation

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

   The lazy woman died of starvation

   During the Song Dynasty (960AD to 1279AD) there lived a woman who had
become so lazy that she did nothing but eating and sleeping. She began 
to loath every kind of work and neglected her duties as a mother of
two children and a wife. Her husband had to do the cooking, the washing
up of the pots and pans, sweeping of the floor and making of the beds. She
did not help with the house chores. 

  Just a few days before the New Year her husband asked her to made a new
dress for each of the children. She replied,

   "I don't have any material for the new dresses. 
    How can I make them?"
The husband did not say any thing.
  
  The next day he went to the town and bought a few yards of clothe and
gave them to her, expecting her to make the new dresses for the children.
She did not do any sewing but just wrapped their children up together with
the new clothe and said that it was done. But the children were turned
into a large bulky package. The husband tried to help them to stand up but
they toppled over. The wife said that they supposed to roll on the floor.
The husband was very angry but he did not say anything. 
 
  The following day the husband asked her to knit a pair of socks for him
for the new year. The lazy woman replied,
   "How do you expect me to knit socks without any wool?" 
The husband went to the town again and bought a ball of wool and gave
it to her. He thought he could have a new pair of socks for New Year.  

  The lazy woman took the ball of wool to the nearest temple. She wound
the wool round and round the legs of a god's statue. After winding off
all the wool she tried to take the socks home. But it was impossible to
pull them off from the statue's legs. So she went home without the socks.
  Her husband asked,
  "Where are my socks?"
  The lazy woman blamed it on the statue and replied,
  "The statue refused to give me back your socks".
The husband controlled his anger and left the house without saying a
word.

   A month later the lazy woman decided to visit her mother who lived in
another village about fifteen kilometers away. There was no way she could
get to her mother's house except by walking. Knowing his wife was so lazy
the husband baked a big biscuit for her the night before her departure.
The next morning he hanged the big biscuit on her neck and said,

   "This is for you to eat while you are on your way 
    to your mother's house".
After saying goodbye to the family she left for her mother's. 
 
   Several days later two policemen came to his house and told him that
they found his wife's dead body on the road that led to another village.   
He could not believe them as he had provided her with food for her
journey. The policemen took him to the spot where her body was still 
lying there. He saw the huge buscuit was still tied to her neck. But the
portion that was nearest to her mouth had disappeared. That proved that
she had eaten only the portion that was near her mouth. She was too lazy
to turn the biscuit around. The conclusion was that she died of 
starvation.
 
A Chinese forklore
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan.   chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au