Kong Rong was a witty second century warlord, governor, and writer. From youth he revealed an ability to make a quick comeback, some appropriate comment to counter the words of another.
During a series of crop failures Cao Cao, Emperor of the Wei Kingdom, banned alcohol. Rong, taking offense at the ban, wrote a sarcastic comment that then offended Cao Cao. The Emperor eventually proscribed Rong and his family. When Rong’s young children were urged to escape before they were killed, they supposedly said, “How could there be unbroken eggs under a toppled nest?” Now a Chinese idiomatic expression, those words suggest that when harm comes to one in a group, then it comes to all.
In 1919 Incas died in the Cincinnati zoo. He was the last of his kind, a Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), a New World parrot that once ranged from New York to Florida and west beyond the Mississippi. Incas lost his mate, Lady Jane, some months before, and with her gone his death meant the extinction of his species. There aren’t unbroken eggs under a toppled nest. From the time of the early North American explorers through the nineteenth century, the noisy but colorful parrots were hunted for their bright yellow head feathers, some of which ended up on ladies’ fashionable hats. And while the birds died during hunts, they were also losing their wooded habitats. So, for four hundred years people “toppled the nests.” Carolina parrots were a doomed group, and their social behavior of gathering where others of their kind had fallen, contributed to their demise. When harm came to one of them, the others unknowingly passed into the gun sights of the hunters.
Have the children of Rong given us a lesson? If we don’t protect one in a group, will all suffer? What group will next be represented by a lonely Incas?
During a series of crop failures Cao Cao, Emperor of the Wei Kingdom, banned alcohol. Rong, taking offense at the ban, wrote a sarcastic comment that then offended Cao Cao. The Emperor eventually proscribed Rong and his family. When Rong’s young children were urged to escape before they were killed, they supposedly said, “How could there be unbroken eggs under a toppled nest?” Now a Chinese idiomatic expression, those words suggest that when harm comes to one in a group, then it comes to all.
In 1919 Incas died in the Cincinnati zoo. He was the last of his kind, a Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), a New World parrot that once ranged from New York to Florida and west beyond the Mississippi. Incas lost his mate, Lady Jane, some months before, and with her gone his death meant the extinction of his species. There aren’t unbroken eggs under a toppled nest. From the time of the early North American explorers through the nineteenth century, the noisy but colorful parrots were hunted for their bright yellow head feathers, some of which ended up on ladies’ fashionable hats. And while the birds died during hunts, they were also losing their wooded habitats. So, for four hundred years people “toppled the nests.” Carolina parrots were a doomed group, and their social behavior of gathering where others of their kind had fallen, contributed to their demise. When harm came to one of them, the others unknowingly passed into the gun sights of the hunters.
Have the children of Rong given us a lesson? If we don’t protect one in a group, will all suffer? What group will next be represented by a lonely Incas?
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