Meeilei said that she is "A woman fool who moves the water" 愚婆移水;

After 3-weeks of vacation in Taiwan, Meeilei went back safely to U.S. Today, when we had a Skype-phone conversation, she told me a funny story. She described herself as an old and foolish woman who moves the water, or 愚婆移水.

However, you need to understand a bit of relative Chinese legendary story, 'An old and foolish man who moves the mountain' or 愚公移山 before you appreciate her story. The "old and foolish man who moves the mountain" or 愚公移山 story teaches children the virtue of persistence; because an old man can eventually move a mountain by shear persistence in removing the dirt of the mountain, one bit at a time. So this old man is not a fool at all; he is wise and persistent.

Every Taiwanese learned this story when he or she was a school child. Nevertheless, to move a mountain by shoveling dirt one bit at a time, it takes A LOT of energy and time. Today, Taiwanese refers this term as a laborious and tedious work in a funny way.

Three weeks in Taiwan, Meeilei enjoyed very good weather in Taiwan while the Midwest of the US was suffering sub-zero cold weather. The next day when she arrived in US, Appleton suddenly had an Indian summer of 40 F. The ice melts at 32 F; so our drive-way is flooded with water. She watches neighbors connecting water channels to direct melting water into the underground sewage water system. But first, she must find the opening hole of the sewage channel; those holes were covered by thick ice. It took her a while yesterday to find the hole and almost an hour to finally dig out the sewage drain. 'that was cool' she said, BUT, although the drain was open, the water was not going to go down from the driveway to the drain automatically. First of all, the driveway is the lowest point of the street and the water doesn't go upwards. Secondly, we live in a corner house and the drain is on the other corner of the house. She needs to open a channel to direct the water to the drain. So, it took her another hour to chip the ice to open up a water channel. Okay, here comes the most amazing part. Since our driveway is the lowest point of the street, when she push the water towards the drain the water would run back down towards the house again so she has to run faster than the water to get them towards the drain. even that she still only get about half of the water she pushed towards the drain each time. that's when she really feels like 'fool-woman who moves water!!!or 愚婆移水.

When a neighbor passed by, Meeilei had asked the neighbor to take a photo pictures doing the laborious work battling the ice and water. The neighbor replied,

"Probably it is not a good idea for Frank to see this 'laborious picture', because Frank would never come back", said John, the neighbor.

Meeilei's story was pretty funny. If you don't feel funny in reading this story, you probably want to ask her to re-tell her story in her own words.