The Fly

A Vietnamese Folktale

The usurer was a rich and smart man. After accumulating a fortune, he settled down in his big house with his big garden, guarded by ferocious dogs. Still unsatisfied, he kept lending money to others at exorbitant interest rates. One day the rich man set off to collect a debt from one of his poor peasants. But when he arrived, only a small boy of eight or nine was there, playing in the yard.

The boy told the rich man that his parents were not home. The boy said that his father had gone to cut living trees and plant dead ones and his mother was selling the wind and buying the moon. Confused, the rich man promised that if the boy revealed the truth about where his parents were, he would forget about the debt the father owed him. The boy did not believe the man and insisted on a witness to their deal. The rich man spied a fly on a bamboo pole and proposed that the fly be their witness. The boy then told the rich man that his father had gone to cut down bamboos to make a fence and his mother had gone to the market to sell fans to buy oil for their lamps. A few days later, the rich man returned to collect his money. The boy overheard the man and told his father about the usurer’s promise to forgive the debt. The rich man denied. In time, the affair was brought before the governing mandarin. When the boy revealed his story and that a fly had been witness, the mandarin did not believe him. The boy declared that the witness fly had been on the moneylender’s nose the whole time. The usurer then roared, “That’s a pack of lies! The fly was NOT on my nose; he was on the housepole…” At that point, the majestic mandarin burst out laughing, with all the people in the court. “So it’s settled. House pole or no house pole, your conversation did happen after all! You must keep your promise.” And, with that, all parties were dismissed.