Chinese Idiom Stories for Software Professionals: #1 Seven-Step Poem (七步詩)
Practical Test for candidates; Work on the common goal rather than narrow interests
8 min readNov 14, 2021
This article is one of the “Chinese Idiom Stories for Software Professionals” series.
On Nov 2, 2021, Elon Musk tweeted with a Chinese poem, in literally Chinese characters.
This is the translation on Wikipedia.
Beanstalks are ignited to boil beans,
In the pot, the beans weep.
[We are] born of the selfsame root,
Why in such a rush to fry me!
The tweet made global news. There were plenty of analysing articles on Elon Musk's intention behind the tweet, such as ‘climate change’ and ‘tension between Taiwan and mainland China”. A humorous one: "Elon is posting a bean recipe".
Table of Contents:· Why am I writing this?
· Why use Chinese idioms (in English)?
· Story: Seven-Step Poem
· For Software Professionals
∘ 1. Using practical tests for job candidates
∘ 2. Work on the common goal, rather than narrow interests
