The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
E1007692
"The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains" is a famous Chinese fable, often attributed to the philosopher Liezi, that teaches perseverance and determination through the story of an old man who resolves to move two great mountains despite his age and limitations.
All labels observed (7)
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T12868070 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains Context triple: [Mount Wangwu, hasCulturalReference, The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains]
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A.
Three Brothers of the Peach Garden
The Three Brothers of the Peach Garden are the legendary sworn brothers Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei from the Chinese classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," celebrated for their loyalty and brotherhood.
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B.
The Leaping Horse
The Leaping Horse is a celebrated 1825 landscape painting by English Romantic artist John Constable, depicting a horse jumping a barrier along the River Stour in rural Suffolk.
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C.
The Handan Dream
The Handan Dream is a classic Ming dynasty Chinese play by dramatist Tang Xianzu that explores the illusory nature of worldly success and human ambition through a vividly imagined dream narrative.
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D.
The Children of Huang Shi
The Children of Huang Shi is a historical drama film depicting a British journalist’s efforts to protect a group of Chinese orphans during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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E.
Song of the Three Holy Youths
Song of the Three Holy Youths is an ancient biblical canticle, traditionally associated with the Book of Daniel, that recounts the praise of God by three youths miraculously preserved in a fiery furnace.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains Target entity description: "The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains" is a famous Chinese fable, often attributed to the philosopher Liezi, that teaches perseverance and determination through the story of an old man who resolves to move two great mountains despite his age and limitations.
-
A.
Three Brothers of the Peach Garden
The Three Brothers of the Peach Garden are the legendary sworn brothers Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei from the Chinese classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," celebrated for their loyalty and brotherhood.
-
B.
The Leaping Horse
The Leaping Horse is a celebrated 1825 landscape painting by English Romantic artist John Constable, depicting a horse jumping a barrier along the River Stour in rural Suffolk.
-
C.
The Handan Dream
The Handan Dream is a classic Ming dynasty Chinese play by dramatist Tang Xianzu that explores the illusory nature of worldly success and human ambition through a vividly imagined dream narrative.
-
D.
The Children of Huang Shi
The Children of Huang Shi is a historical drama film depicting a British journalist’s efforts to protect a group of Chinese orphans during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
-
E.
Song of the Three Holy Youths
Song of the Three Holy Youths is an ancient biblical canticle, traditionally associated with the Book of Daniel, that recounts the praise of God by three youths miraculously preserved in a fiery furnace.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (41)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Chinese fable
ⓘ
didactic tale ⓘ moral story ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Liezi ⓘ |
| associatedWith | Daoist philosophy ⓘ |
| attributedTo | Liezi ⓘ |
| centralObstacle | two great mountains ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | China ⓘ |
| culturalSignificance |
often cited in speeches and writings to encourage perseverance
ⓘ
widely taught to children in Chinese-speaking communities ⓘ |
| didacticFunction |
challenging short-term thinking
ⓘ
encouraging resilience in the face of hardship ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter |
foolish old man
ⓘ
heavenly beings ⓘ old man’s family ⓘ skeptical neighbor ⓘ |
| genre | Chinese classical literature ⓘ |
| hasChineseTitle |
愚公移山
ⓘ
linked to:
The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
|
| influenced | modern Chinese political rhetoric ⓘ |
| moral | Persistent effort can overcome great obstacles ⓘ |
| moralCategory |
optimism about human effort
ⓘ
virtue of perseverance ⓘ |
| narrativeType | allegory ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Classical Chinese ⓘ |
| plotSummary | An old man decides to remove two mountains blocking his village by digging them away bit by bit with the help of his family ⓘ |
| referencedBy | Mao Zedong ⓘ |
| relatedConcept | Chinese idiom 愚公移山 ⓘ |
| resolution | The gods are moved by the old man’s perseverance and order the mountains to be removed ⓘ |
| setting | rural Chinese village ⓘ |
| symbolizes |
overcoming seemingly impossible tasks
ⓘ
power of persistence ⓘ |
| teaches |
collective effort
ⓘ
determination ⓘ patience ⓘ perseverance ⓘ |
| theme |
faith in long-term effort
ⓘ
human will versus natural obstacles ⓘ intergenerational continuity ⓘ |
| timePerspective | multi-generational effort ⓘ |
| titleTranslation |
Yu Gong Moves the Mountains
ⓘ
linked to:
The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
|
| usedAs | proverbial reference in Chinese culture ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains Description of subject: "The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains" is a famous Chinese fable, often attributed to the philosopher Liezi, that teaches perseverance and determination through the story of an old man who resolves to move two great mountains despite his age and limitations.
Referenced by (7)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
linked to: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
linked to: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
linked to: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains
linked to: The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains