ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html> <head> <title> Unsigned antique bottles </title> <body> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" background="bg_awz.jpg"> <center> <center> <font size=2> <table border=10 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=5 width=auto BORDERCOLOR="000000"> <tr> <TD ALIGN = "center"> <IMG SRC="old_10a.jpg"width=294" height="450" border="1"> </TD> <TD ALIGN = "center"> <IMG SRC="old_10b.jpg"width="294" height="450" border="1"> </TD> </tr> </table> </center><br> Front:Liu Hai and the legendary toad (chanchu)<br> Liu Hai was a Minister of State during the 10th century in China and a Taoist. <br> There are two versions of the story with the three legged toad.<br> One version of the story says that he became good friends with a three-legged toad<br> who had the fabulous ability to whisk its owner to any destination. This particular <br> toad had a love not only for water but also for gold. The toad happened to escape <br> down a well, Liu Hai could make him come out by means of a line baited with gold coins.<br><br> The second version of the story is that the toad actually lived in a deep pool and exuded <br> a poisonous vapor which harmed the people. Liu Hai is said to have hooked this ugly and <br> venous creature with gold coins and then destroyed it.<br><br> The story of Liu Hai is frequently told as "Liu Hai playing with the Golden Toad". <br> There is a hidden meaning here. The Chinese word for "toad" is chanchu (þ‡‡). <br> Sometimes, Chinese will only say the first character chan (þ‡). In some Chinese dialects, <br> the character chan has a pronunciation very similar to qian (±”) which means "coin". <br> Therefore, a storyteller reciting "Liu Hai playing with the Golden Toad" could be <br> heard by listeners as "Liu Hai playing with the gold coins".<br><br> translation on back "The green mountain looks more slanted" <br><br> From Washington DC / Silver Springs, MD area estate. (Same estate as Shouben bottle) </center> <br> <center><font size=2> <a href="../antique.htm">BACK</a> </center> </body> </html>