I was shown a children’s story book that my nephew was giving as a present to another relative. There was a picture of a panda bear with an umbrella on the cover. My niece’s husband was showing it to me as the nephew was giving it to another relative as he liked the book very much. Before I even opened up the book I got an earful about the story. I was told it was a book of Japanese stories. As my niece’s husband was talking I said that is a famous Chengyu! It is a chengyu telling how something could be a blessing in disguise. The Chengyu is one of the most common in the Chinese language. Chengyu are normally four letter sayings that refer to a story. In the book there was no mention that it was a chengyu. Only the story was there. I don’t know many chengyus but that is one that I remembered the story but not the chengyu. I looked up the chengyu and of course found it right away. It is a story of a horse that ran away. The old man owner of the horse was very philosophical about the situation when he neighbors commented that they were sorry for his bad luck. A time passed and the horse returned with two wild horses. A bad thing turned into something good. The son started to train the wild horses, fell off and broke his leg.  The neighbors said oh we are sorry for your bad luck. The old man said maybe not. The government came and took all the son’s of the village to fight a war. They did not take the old man’s son as he had a broken leg. The old man then declared Sai Weng Shi Ma. Basically meaning it was a blessing in disguise!