Stories of the Origin of the Money Tree
There are several
legends relating to the origin of the Chinese money
tree.
One story tells of an old white-haired man who gave a
peasant a very special seed. The old man told
the farmer to plant the seed and then to water it
everyday. Not just any water could be used,
however. The water had to be the beads of sweat
from the peasant himself. Since the seed needed
a lot of water in order to sprout, the farmer would
need to provide a great deal of sweat everyday.
The old man then told the peasant that once the seed
had sprouted, it would need to be continually
watered. But not just any "water" could be
used. The sprout would need to be watered with
drops of blood from the farmer himself.
The peasant did as he was instructed and the resulting
plant grew up to be a "money tree". The peasant
found that by shaking the tree, coins would fall to
the ground. The peasant became rich and, because
new coins grew back to replace the coins that had
fallen, the tree became a source of perpetual wealth.
While the story provides a magical origin for the
money tree, the implied meaning is that a person
actually becomes rich through hard work and relying on
one's own sweat and blood.
A more literary source for the origin of the money
tree has to do with the identical pronunciation of the
Chinese word for "bronze" (tong 铜) and the Chinese word for the
paulownia tree (tong
桐), also known as the phoenix tree or tung tree.
The leaves of this tree are said to resemble Chinese
coins. The leaves turn yellow in the autumn, and
when the wind blows, they look like bronze or gold
coins falling from the tree.