Let’s fill up the sea, or…can we?

Anyone who has used a Windows Computer would know about the composition by the Great Ludwig Van Beethoven. It is a WMA file best suited to show user the working of Windows Media Player. However, not many of us know the story behind this composition, and its composer. But before going into that, we will first read a story from The Chinese Mythology that will help us to understand this legendary artist better.

At the North East of the Fajiu hills, among the mulberry trees, there is a story popular about an unusual kind of a bird. This bird is called Jingwei. It is known to be having resemblance with a crow, but its head is colourful, while his beak is white and the claws are red.

It is said that this bird, Jingwei, was a princess in the past life, daughter of the Emperor Yandi. Her name was Nuwa, and she was a playful girl, always spreading joy among people. Also known for her kindness and compassion for everyone, she was the life of her kingdom, and everybody looked forward to her being throned as a queen.

She was determined to be a ruler that rules to serve.

One day, she was strolling around the Sea. It was a Sunny day and she felt like taking a swim, and so, she entered into the Sea, nicely enjoying the splashing cold waves of the water. It has been hardly a few minutes, when the waves took a higher magnitude, and Nuwa couldn’t swim anymore. She drowned, and died.

The story of her re-birth as a bird continues here. The determination she had in her previous life, of serving people, continued in this birth too.As a bird, she makes the sound ‘jingwei’, and hence she got the name. It is said that she is seen carrying twigs and pebbles into her beak and throwing those into the Sea.

It astonished the Sea how a little bird can do something like that with so much of devotion, he asked, “Jingwei, why do you throw this branches and pebbles everyday in my water?”

“Because I don’t want anyone else to be drowning and dying again, and that is why I am filling you up with this stones and branches”, answered Jingwei.

Sea chortled, “It will take millions of years to do that.”

“Even if it takes billions, I am determined to fill you up”, thundered Jingwei.



And thus, we have the idiom, “Jingwei tries to fill up the Sea.”

It is used to describe people who are firm to achieve their destination without letting anything to deviate them from the path.

Back to Beethoven.

This German Musician started composing music from a young age, since the age of 7. Years after years, he progressed.

Unfortunately, his hearing ability started to decline over the age of 45, and by the year 1820, he was presumed to be totally deaf.

Did this stop him from doing what he loved? NO.

He still composed music, and the highest accomplishment of his life, his 9th symphony, was composed while he himself could never hear it.

A deaf man created history in the world of Music.

A little bird is still determined to fill up the sea.

Nothing discouraged them, not even their most impossible goals.

Can we be even half determined as them?