邯郸学步 — “Handan learning to walk”

Legend has it that two thousand years ago, in Shouling, a place in the Yan Kingdom, there lived a young man whose name is unknown, so let's just call him the Shouling youth. This Shouling youth had no worries about food or clothing, and his appearance was considered average. However, he lacked self-confidence and often felt inexplicably inferior to others—thinking their clothes were better, their food tastier, and their posture more elegant. He would imitate everything he saw, but he would learn one thing and forget another. Although he constantly tried new things, he could never do anything well, unsure of what his own true self should be like. His family advised him to change this habit, but he thought they were being too controlling. His relatives and neighbors called him a 'bear breaking corn' (meaning he got nowhere by trying everything), but he wouldn't listen.

As time passed, he even began to doubt how he should walk, finding his own walking posture increasingly clumsy and ugly. One day, he met several people chatting and laughing on the road, and he overheard someone say that the way people walked in Handan was truly beautiful. Hearing this, his obsession flared up. He hurried forward, wanting to inquire further. Unexpectedly, those people burst into laughter upon seeing him, then walked away. How exactly did Handan people walk beautifully? He couldn't imagine it. This became his constant preoccupation.

Finally, one day, he secretly left his family and traveled to distant Handan to learn how to walk. Upon arriving in Handan, he found everything fresh and dazzling. He saw children walking and thought it was lively and beautiful, so he imitated them; he saw old people walking and thought it was steady, so he imitated them; he saw women walking with graceful swaying, so he imitated them.

In this manner, in less than half a month, he even forgot how to walk. His travel expenses were depleted, and he had no choice but to crawl his way back home.