Aesop told a story about a donkey that put on a lion skin and strutted through the forest. Chinese told a story about a fox that walked in front of a tiger and let the whole mountain mistake the fear for his own.
The Chinese idiom is 狐假虎威, in pinyin *hu jia hu wei*. Word for word: the fox borrows the tiger’s might. We use it for a person with little power of his own who leans on someone stronger and lets the world be afraid.
Unlike most Chinese fables, this one was not told in a village at night. It was told in a royal court, by a minister, to his own king.
The state of Chu, in the Warring States period, was the largest in China by land and by army.
Its ruler was King Xuan of Chu. He had one worry that would not go away.
Among his ministers was a man named Zhao Xixi. Zhao could command troops and run an administration, and the northern frontier of Chu was held up, more than by anything else, by his name. When the states to the north, Wei and Han and Zhao, spoke of Chu, what they feared was not the king. It was Zhao Xixi.
One day the king called his ministers together and asked: I hear the northern states fear our Zhao Xixi. Is that so?
For a moment, no one answered.
Everyone could hear how dangerous the question was. To say yes was to flatter Zhao and, worse, to admit that what other states feared in Chu was a minister, not a king. To say no was to argue with the king to his face. The ministers kept their eyes down and said nothing.
Then one man stepped forward.
His name was Jiang Yi. He was known for speaking plainly and for not caring whom he offended. Others wrapped their meaning in cloth. Jiang Yi said it straight. Everyone at court knew that when he opened his mouth, something was going to be pierced.
He said: My king, let me tell you a story first.
He was in no hurry to defend Zhao, or to smooth things over for the king. Before he said anything else, he traded the tight air of the hall for a wind through a mountain forest.
Once there was a tiger in the hills.
The tiger was hungry and came out looking for food. He prowled through the trees, and in time he caught a fox.
Of course the fox could not get away. His life was about to end.
The forest went quiet. The tiger’s paw pressed on the fox’s back. The fox’s four legs were shaking. But his mind was running faster than anything in the forest.
And the fox did not panic. He lifted his head and said one thing to the tiger. You cannot eat me.
The tiger froze.
He had caught a great many animals in his life. This was the first time anyone had spoken that way with his mouth this close to the tiger’s teeth.
The fox went on. Heaven appointed me chief of all the beasts. If you eat me today, you are defying the order of Heaven. And if you do not believe me, here is what we will do. I will walk in front. You will follow behind. We will take a walk through the hills, and you will see with your own eyes whether the beasts dare to stay when they see me.
The tiger thought about it. He decided there was no harm in trying.
So the fox went first, and the tiger followed, and they walked up into the deep forest.
The animals saw them coming and ran. Rabbits dived into burrows, deer bolted into the trees, and even the wild boar turned and fled as fast as its legs could carry it.
Birds burst out of the branches. The grass rippled where things fled through it. The whole mountain seemed to flinch at once.
The tiger did not know that the beasts were afraid of him.
He thought they were afraid of the fox walking calmly in front.
The tiger was huge, and heavy, and the ground shook when he moved. He never imagined that when the animals looked, they had no time to see the fox at all. But the fox paid no attention to that. Head high, tail up, he walked as if he were the true king of the beasts.
Then Jiang Yi paused, and turned the story back toward the hall.
He said: My king, your land reaches five thousand li across. Your soldiers number a million. And you have given all of them to Zhao Xixi.
So when the northern states fear Zhao Xixi, what they really fear is the armored might of Chu.
Just as the beasts feared the tiger, and not the fox.
The hall went so quiet you could hear people breathe.
There was a second half to what Jiang Yi said, and he did not say it. But everyone heard it anyway. The awe around Zhao Xixi was given to him by the king. The million men in his hands could frighten anyone under a different name. What held up the banner was the man on the throne. A king must not stare only at the fox in front, and forget the tiger the fox is riding on.
What King Xuan thought, the text does not record. But the story was written down, word for word, and passed on. In time, *hu jia hu wei* became an idiom, and the fox and the tiger walked out of a Chu hillside and into everyone’s mouth.
There is another layer that is easy to miss. Why did the tiger believe the fox? Because he was so strong that it never occurred to him that anyone could borrow his power to frighten others. The one whose strength is being borrowed is often the last to know.
Two thousand years later, the forests are gone, and the tiger is a legend. The four characters remain, still used every day. The fox’s talent for borrowing has never gone out of date.
The power the fox borrowed was fake. But the nerve to borrow it, with the tiger’s teeth at his throat, was real. In the world, the one who truly holds a room is often not the one in front, snarling, but the quiet one behind him, saying nothing.
People use the Chinese proverb hu jia hu wei for someone who bullies others by leaning on a stronger back. It is usually said with a knowing smile, because everyone can see what the fox really is. As for the tiger, whether he is still standing there is the whole question. That is what the trick actually rests on.
