Going it alone or taking joint efforts?

[reedak]

Uncle Sam once went camping with his four friends -- a Korean, a Japanese, a Chinese and a Russian -- on a Korean mountain. As his Korean friend had fallen ill on the way, Uncle Sam handed a cooking pot with the ingredients to his Chinese friend who was a Korean food expert. The Chinese, however, rejected his request. Pushing back the cooking pot to Uncle Sam, he said that making Korean broth was not his responsibility but required joint efforts from all sides. Uncle Sam quoted a proverb in response: "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

While both men wasted much valuable time pushing the cooking pot to each other, the ghost of Uncle Sam's great-grandfather appeared suddenly in the dim moonlight.  "What variant of Taiji are you guys practising with a cooking pot?  My dear great-grandson, the longer the cooking pot shuttles back and forth between both parties, the longer I remain nostalgic about our good old days. You may get an inkling of what to do next after listening to my story."

Taking a short pause, the apparition continued: "A long time ago during a mountain trekking trip with my two friends in Japan, we arrived at a small hut. As the door was not locked, we pushed open the door but found nobody inside. As we were very hungry, we went at once into the kitchen to look for something that could keep us trekking on our stomachs. I found some ingredients for making Japanese broth, but alas, it was too little for my big stomach. Without requesting help from others, I wasted no time making dashi and kept it all for myself, just giving a few drops to my Chinese friend. My Russian friend got none, but he was crafty enough to pocket four dried baby anchovies quietly while I was attending to the broth."

Casting a glance at the Chinese and the Russian who were cowering in a corner, the spectre broke into laughter and and faded away gradually into the thin air.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north ... SKBN1AG0W7

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/1 ... onsibility

https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/kimchiguk

http://www.justonecookbook.com/how_to/h ... ashi-jiru/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11664434

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quot ... 30788.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/31/opini ... index.html

https://worldhistoryproject.org/1951/9/ ... eign-state