Characters: Hok, Lok, Siew, Villagers
Setting: A village
Plot: Hok, Lok, and Siew devise a way to make “stone soup”.
Stone soup is a meaningful and interesting story about making soup, actually not from stones. Three monks, Hok, Lok, and Siew, wanted to teach the villagers, who were distrusting and suspicious, how to be happy. So, they decided to make stone soup. They got three smooth stones with the help of a girl, and the girl brought a large pot from home. The large pot in the middle of the village got other people’s attention, and they came out of curiosity. The monks only asked for salt and pepper and soliloquized the next few of the ingredients. Soon, the villagers started adding things to the soup by themselves. When the soup was done and ready, they sat down and ate the soup. After the feast, they invited the monks into their houses for the night and were grateful for the happiness the monks taught.
Trust and sharing can make us happier and strengthen relationships between people. Distrust can make people feel endangered and weaken relationships. They can also block communication between people, and selfishness can cause the same situation as in the village before the monks’ arrival. At first, the villagers didn’t trust the monks, they were unhappy and very distrustful. After making the stone soup together and the villagers learned to trust and share. The monks started making soup, and the villagers began to share more and more ingredients, first spices, then carrots and mushrooms, and more and more other ingredients. At last, they even share their houses with the monks. The monks got places to rest, and the villagers were happy with the banquet and also learned to trust and share with others. This illustrates how trust affects relationships. Since they treat each other nicely and get along well, they can relax and enjoy, and become happy. Also, everyone is happier if people share, and it helps everyone have more. Trust and sharing are important in relationships, and relationships with trust and sharing can make people happy.
Better and more efficient teaching strategies will help the students adopt the lessons easier and make them respect the teacher. If the teaching strategies are good and efficient, people can learn easily, but if they aren’t, they might even refuse to learn. When the villagers shut their doors, the monks didn’t blame the villagers for it, preventing a potential feud. Also, the monks used an interesting way to teach the villagers how to be happy. Instead of directly telling them to trust other people, they used a more acceptable way by teaching them to make stone soup, so the villagers learned to trust others and to share during the process of making the soup. They induced the villagers to initiate their part and they started to add things to the soup and trusted each other, and were grateful. This shows that the monks’ teaching strategies made the villagers learn and turned out to fulfill the monks’ purpose, that is, made them happy. With these efficient teaching strategies, the villagers learn easier. If one tells others what to do, people usually refuse. However, if they teach interestingly or let them try themselves, others might get their idea and adopt the teachings.
Though it is very difficult to initiate something, a single or a few people could initiate a spark and lead to more and more people following as. When a few wise people come to a site, they can attract more people and those people could attract even more. People usually are more willing to do something when others initiate, but afraid to lead themselves. When the girl provided help to the monks, they successfully made the smoke rise and aroused the attention of a lot of other villagers, and more and more participated, they finally gathered enough food to have a banquet. The initiation of the girl is important to set up the pot and also as villagers continued to draw attention and attract even more people, this continues over and over in a positive feedback loop. This demonstrates that one person can attract a large group, and those people can attract an even larger group. The smallest thing can make a large influence.
Stone Soup shows that trust and sharing can strengthen relationships, but a good teaching method is necessary for learning trust and sharing, which needs an interesting method instead of telling others what to do. Also, a small group or even an individual can attract larger and larger groups. Three monks initiate making soup with stones, and the villagers give them ingredients. Ultimately, they make a soup that is not only delicious but also teaches the villagers about happiness.
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