Special 390 Chinese Fables Postage Stamps (1998) (D390)

Stamp SN : D390
Stamp Name : Special 390 Chinese Fables Postage Stamps (1998)
Stamp Cat Standard : Special Stamps
Stamp Cat : Literature,Literature
Issue date : 1998-09-25
Dimension of stamps(mm.) : 40x30(mm)
Printer : China Color Printing Co., Inc., R. 0. C.
Sheet composition : 20 (5 X 4)
Print color : Colorful
Process : Deep etch offset
Paper : (1) 5.00 12.00-Phosphorescent stamp paper
Perforation : 111/2 x11
Designer : Rolland Chang

The Chinese term "yuyen," or fable, came from Chuang-tzu, and it meant "writing that offers sustenance." Later it came to mean all kinds of speeches that use stories as metaphors. Various schools of philosophers in the late Chou dynasty used this form to expound and promote their ideologies. It was also a rhetorical method employed by the lobbyists of the Epoch of the Warring States to persuade rulers, ministers and generals of their positions. In order to ease understanding, fables often used in stories about animals to comment on the affairs of the human world, giving their listeners indirect advice and warnings in the hope of educating them, dissuading them from acts of folly, and encouraging them to make proper reforms. Worthy of glorifying and promoting, these fables are brief, to the point and philosophical, and their titles have become idioms used in everyday life: "a frog in a well" means a man of very limited experience, "the fox borrows the tiger's ferocity" means bullying people by flaunting one's powerful connections, "adding legs to a drawing of a snake" means ruining an effect by adding something superfluous, and "the snipe and the clam are at a deadlock" means it's the third party that benefits from the tussle.