In this episode of the Three Character Classic (三字经) we follow on from our previous two episodes, about the importance of listening to teachers and of filial respect for parents, with one about being nice to your elder brother. (You might be picking up a theme…) In our story, we learn about Kong Rong (孔融), a Qing Dynasty official whose kindness towards his older brother was so great that it ended up in the history books.

The三字经 was written by the Song Dynasty (宋朝) scholar Wang Yinglin (王应麟). This 1,134 character text was one of the first textbooks used by students, and provided lessons on education, morality and ethics, science, literature, and history.