英语寓言作文--滥竽充数

During the Warring States Period, the King of the State of Qi was very fond of listening to Yu ensembles. It was often the case that up to 300 players, whom can be treated very well by the King, were summoned to form a grand music show. A man named Nanguo heard about that and managed to become a member of the band, even though, matter-of-factly, he wasn’t good at it at all. Whenever the band played for the Kind, Nanguo just stood in the line and pretended to play, while nobody ever noticed that he was making no sound. By this way, he enjoyed the treatment as other musicians did. However, after the death of the King, his successor of the throne, who preferred the solos, began to order musicians to play one by one, therefore, Nanguo had to flee away. The idiom "Be there just to make up the number" is used to mock someone who passes for a specialist. You can also hear people saying it about themselves to show their modesty. So, in this essay, I’m going to talk something about modesty, which are expressed and understood in various ways under different kinds of cultural backgrounds. As the cultural differences concerned, it cannot be avoided that in the communications between two cultures, misunderstanding, which usually impedes a further contact, due to something related to beliefs, values, thoughts, etc., can be seen quite often. E.g., it’s been regarded as a significant diversity between Chinese and Americans on the attitudes towards modesty. For our Chinese, modesty, in which greeting, welcome, asking for help, self-introduction, gifting is employed, occupies a considerably large portion in our culture. While, for Americans, on the contrary, modesty is not a kind of merit to be praised so it’s not commonly used by them. More often, Americans intend to show themselves as much as possible in an attempt to acquire a higher status. Hence, as a conclusion, the ancient story of Mr. Nanguo, may be exquisitely translated, but cannot be well received.