One day a foreign scholar came to Aksehir and asked to talk to the wisest man in the city. The villagers took him to the Hodja. When they met, the foreigner took a stick and drew a large circle on the ground. The Hodja looked at the circle, took the stick, and drew a line across the middle of the circle. The foreigner drew another perpendicular line, dividing the circle into quarters. The Hodja gestured as though he were taking three of the sections and leaving the fourth. The foreigner then put his fingers together, faced them toward the ground, and shook them. The Hodja raised his hand to the sky and stretched out his fingers. When the meeting was over, the foreign scholar explained, "Your Hodja is very smart. When I indicated that the Earth was round, he responded that an equator divides it. When I divided the Earth into four sections, he said that three-quarters of it is water. When I asked him what causes rain, he told me that water evaporates, vapor rises, then clouds form and turn into rain." The villagers asked the Hodja what happened during the meeting. He answered, "That glutton! He told me he had a pan of baklava. I said that he couldn't eat it alone and that I would eat half of it. Then he asked me what I would do if he divided it into four pieces. I told him that I would take three of them. Then he said, 'Let's sprinkle nuts on it.' I said, 'Fine, but you can't bake baklava on a weak fire; it has to be strong.' He felt defeated and went away."
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about On the Importance of Perspective Taking
This story dates from the 1400s and comes from the Turkish folk tradition. According to legend, the creator of the tale is Nasreddin Hodja, a wise teacher who told many stories to make points about human nature, politics, and the differences between social classes. Indeed, the word Hodja means teacher. Many of these stories have been passed down from generation to generation orally and in writing. [1]
