Nasreddin Hodja - Turkish

Hello! My name is Nasreddin Hodja, and that’s my trusty donkey you hear braying. We travel all across the beautiful land of Turkey, where the markets are full of wonderful smells and interesting people. One day, I saw a greedy man trying to be unfair to a poor fellow, and I knew I had to step in. This is the story of how I taught a lesson with the smell of soup and the sound of money.

In a busy town square, a grumpy cook owned a soup shop. His soup smelled so delicious that it made everyone’s tummy rumble. A poor man, who had no money to buy a bowl, stood nearby with a piece of dry bread. He would hold his bread over the steam, close his eyes, and pretend he was eating the rich, warm soup. He wasn't hurting anyone; he was just enjoying the lovely smell. But the grumpy cook saw him and stomped outside. 'You! You are stealing my soup's smell!' he shouted. 'You must pay me for it!' The poor man was very frightened because he didn't have a single coin.

Just then, I arrived on my donkey. A crowd had gathered to see what the shouting was about. I listened carefully to the cook's complaint and then to the poor man's story. With a twinkle in my eye, I turned to the poor man and said, 'Do you have any money at all?'. The man sadly shook his head no. So, I reached into my own pocket and pulled out two small coins. I walked over to the greedy cook, held the coins close to the cook’s ear, and shook them. 'Jingle, jangle, clink!' went the coins. The cook’s eyes lit up, and he reached out his hand to take the money. 'Ah, thank you!' he said. But I pulled the coins away. 'Oh no,' I said with a smile. 'This payment is perfectly fair. The sound of the money is payment for the smell of the soup!'.

The crowd burst into laughter and applause. They all understood the wise and funny lesson I had taught. The greedy cook turned red with embarrassment and hurried back into his shop. He learned that you can't own a smell, and that fairness is more important than money. For hundreds of years, people in Turkey and all over the world have told stories about me, Nasreddin Hodja. They were shared around fires and in homes to make people laugh, but also to teach them about being smart, kind, and fair. Today, my stories are in books and cartoons, reminding us that a clever idea and a good heart are sometimes the best tools to solve a problem and make the world a little brighter.