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Hey hey, lookie here, an excellent guest post submitted by native Chinese speaker Yang from <a href="http://www.learnmandarinnow.com" target="_blank">Learn Mandarin Now</a>. This story tells us a bit about the Chinese <em>chengyu</em> (idiom),塞翁失马, which can mean "a blessing in disguise", or can conversely mean "bad luck in disguised as good". It's used to point out the hidden positives or negatives in a situation, so you might say it means "there are two sides to every circumstance". <!--more-->

I'm loving this post for the fable-y language: "servant", "steed", etc. Plus, I learned a new favorite word in this one: 塞外 [pinyin]sai4 wai4[/pinyin], meaning "Beyond the Great Wall". In other words, a remote place near the outskirts or borders of China. Also, don't forget, 匹 [pinyin]pi3[/pinyin] is the measure word for Horses, so you're gonna see that a few times. 

There's one phrase I'd like to discuss, because I don't think it's immediately clear what it means: 全国上下的年轻男子都被抓去打仗. Let's take a look at this, word by word:

全国 - The whole country
上下的 - Everywhere
年轻男子 - young men
都 - all
被 - grammar word usually indicating that the subject of the sentence has had something unfortunate happen to them
抓 - grabbed
去 - go out
打仗 - fight 

The key word here is 抓 [pinyin]zhua1[/pinyin], which usually means to "catch" or "grab". In this case, the word means "drafted", so it still means to "grab", but in this case, it's the ruling power (probably the king) doing the grabbing up (of potential soldiers). The 被 in this case functions as "were", with a negative overtone. So this can be translated as "All the young men everywhere in the country <strong>were drafted</strong> to go fight a war."

Learn Mandarin Now's "<a href="http://www.learnmandarinnow.com/how-to-read-chinese/" target="_blank">How to Read Chinese</a>" page for a basic overview on getting started with Simplified characters, and look at <a href="http://www.learnmandarinnow.com/blog/" target="_blank">their new blog</a> for some learning tips. 

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<h4>Click to Listen</h4>
老翁 - [pinyin]lao3 weng1[/pinyin] - Old man
仆人 - [pinyin]pu2 ren2[/pinyin] - Servant
邻国 - [pinyin]lin2 guo2[/pinyin] - Neighboring country
闻讯 - [pinyin]wen2 xun4[/pinyin] - [upon] hearing the news...
骏马 - [pinyin]jun4 ma3[/pinyin] - Great Steed
战场 - [pinyin]zhan4 chang3[/pinyin] - Battlefield
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从前，一位<strong>老翁</strong>和他的儿子住在<strong>塞外</strong>的边境上。他们都非常喜欢换骑马。有一天，他们家的<strong>仆人</strong>给老先生报告："我们家的一匹骏马走丢了，好像跑去<strong>邻国</strong>了。"

老翁的朋友<strong>闻讯</strong>都过来安慰他。但老先生说：“呵呵，这也许不是坏事，谁知道呢！＂

几个月之后，奇妙的事情发生了，那匹走失了的骏马意外地跑回来了，并且从邻国带来了一匹新的<strong>骏马</strong>。老翁的好友纷纷过来祝贺他。老翁说：“唉，这也许不是什么好事情呢！”

一天，老翁的儿子正在骑那匹新的骏马，突然不小心从马上掉了下来并摔断了腿。他从今以后都不能正常走路了。老翁的朋友都为老翁感到伤心，但老翁却说：“这个意外以后能为咱们带来好运也不一定。”

一年后，全国上下的年轻男子都被抓去打仗，大部分去参军的年轻人都死在了<strong>战场</strong>。老翁的儿子因为腿受伤了所以避过了这一次劫难。
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Once upon a time, there was an old man who lived with his son on the borders of the country. They both very much enjoyed riding horses. One day, a servant reported to the old man, “One of our good horses has gone missing. It seems the horse ran across to the neighboring country."

Old man's friends came and comforted him. However, the old man said: "Well, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Who knows!"

Couple of months later, a strange thing happened. The missing horse came back, accompanied by a great steed from the neighboring country. When his friends congratulated him on this great news, the old man said: "Well, this might bring us bad luck."

One day, his son was having fun riding on the fine [new] steed. Suddenly, he fell from the hose and broke his leg. His son was never able to walk again. Again, his friends came to comfort the old man. But the old man was not bothered and said: "This accident might bring us good luck in the future."

A year later, all young men in the country were drafted to join a war. Most young men who fought died on the battlefield. Luckily, his son avoided entering the war because of his broken leg.

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