The Empty Pot

**Lisa Bueno** (0:00)
Okay, our friends. So let's do a folk tale.

**Philip** (0:05)
What do you say?

**Lisa Bueno** (0:06)
It's been a while since we've done a really good one, and I've got one here. Yeah, we did.

**Philip** (0:11)
That's really good.

**Lisa Bueno** (0:12)
You know what? We've done a lot of folk tales.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:15)
Little Red Riding Hoodie?

**Lisa Bueno** (0:16)
Possibly.

**Philip** (0:17)
Wait, is Little Red Riding Hoodie a folk tale?

**Philip** (0:19)
It is.

**Lisa Bueno** (0:20)
It is. It's not a fairy tale because there is no fairies in it.
It would be what is considered a folk tale.

**Philip** (0:28)
But I mean Talking Wolf.

**Lisa Bueno** (0:31)
It could be a fable on account if it does have a Talking Wolf. But since it's typically thought of as being a Western Europe type story, a lot of people would probably call it a folk tale.
Nevertheless, let us read this one. It actually comes from China.

**Philip** (0:55)
Are you ready?

**Lisa Bueno** (0:56)
It's called The Empty Pot. It was written by Charlotte Julianne, and it's illustrated by Steve Dorado, and it's read by Mommy, and who are you?
Philip. Philip.

**Philip** (1:14)
Philip.

**Lisa Bueno** (1:15)
Philip. No, just Philip.

**Philip** (1:17)
Just one Philip.

**Philip** (1:19)
Yeah, just one Philip.

**Philip** (1:21)
Philip.

**Philip** (1:22)
Philip.

**Lisa Bueno** (1:25)
Just the one.

**Philip** (1:28)
Got it.

**Philip** (1:30)
Flip. Flip. Philip.

**Lisa Bueno** (1:33)
Flip.
Philip. Got it.

**Philip** (1:36)
Philip.

**Lisa Bueno** (1:37)
And in this story, you will find these characters, a boy named Cheng, who is a hardworking gardener, an emperor, and then a boy named Wei, and then there's other boys in Cheng's village. Are you ready? Here we go.
Many years ago in China, there was an emperor who had no children. As he grew old, he needed to choose someone to take over his throne when he died. He decided to hold a contest. He invited every boy who wanted to be emperor to the palace.
Many boys came to the palace. The emperor gave each boy one seed to plant.

**Philip** (2:32)
The boy who grows the biggest plant will become the next emperor, he declared.

**Lisa Bueno** (2:40)
One of the boys, a poor boy called Cheng, was a very good gardener. He always worked hard, weeding and watering his garden. Cheng took his seed home very carefully. Cheng planted his seed in a pot and watered it every day. All the other boys in his village did the same. But as time passed, there was no sign of Cheng's seed growing.
One day, a boy called Wei told everyone in the village that his seed was growing quickly. He boasted about how big his plant would be.
Wei was sure he would be emperor because nobody else's seed was growing.

**Philip** (3:40)
But he didn't say a word at all.

**Lisa Bueno** (3:43)
As time passed, all the boys in the village started to talk about how well their seeds were growing.
But still the seed in Cheng's pot did not grow. And in the picture, we can see all of the boys holding up their pots. Maybe the seed was a rock. Do you think? It might have been. Well, let's see, because here's all these other boys.

**Philip** (4:10)
Maybe the emperor got all the real seeds mixed up with a rock.

**Lisa Bueno** (4:16)
It's possible.
The other boys' plants are growing, and we can see a wide variety of different plants growing. They must have all gotten different kinds of seeds, I guess.

**Philip** (4:26)
Yeah, probably.

**Lisa Bueno** (4:27)
As months went by, the other boys' plants grew tall and leafy. Still, Cheng's seed did not grow. He tried putting it in a bigger pot, but nothing happened. After six months, the emperor called all the boys back to the palace. The other boys arrived carrying huge plants covered in leaves and flowers and fruits.
Cheng only had his empty pot. But when the emperor saw Cheng's empty pot, he smiled.

**Philip** (5:16)
The seeds I gave you all had been cooked.

**Philip** (5:23)
None of them could grow into anything, the emperor told the other boys.

**Philip** (5:31)
Cheng is the only honest boy among you.

**Lisa Bueno** (5:43)
So, all those boys realized that their plant wasn't growing. And so, they went and got some other seeds and planted them instead, and pretended like what they had planted was what the emperor gave to them to plant?

**Philip** (6:02)
Oh, you naughty boys.

**Lisa Bueno** (6:04)
Dishonest, dishonest, shame. Shame, shame, shame.

**Philip** (6:11)
Disc, disc, disc.

**Lisa Bueno** (6:13)
So, Cheng and his family moved into the palace and lived happily ever after. And when Cheng grew up, he became one of the greatest emperors that China had ever seen.