During the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a skilled archer. One day he drew a big crowd while he was practicing on the drill ground. He shot so accurately that the on-lookers cheered with excitement. He became very proud of his skill. But among the crowd an old oil peddler only nodded his head indifferently. This hurt his Pride.
“Can you do this?” he asked the old oil peddler.
“No, I can’t.”
“What do you think of my skill?”
“Just OK, but nothing special. You’ve gained your accuracy from persistent practice. That’s all.”
“What can you do, then?” the old man said nothing. He put a gourd bottle on the ground and covered its mouth with a copper coin. He then scooped out a ladle of oil from his big jar, held it high and began to fill the bottle.
Now, a thread of oil came down from the ladle into the bottle just through the hole of the coin. Everybody looking on watched with amazement. But the old man said, “This is nothing special, I can do this because I have practiced it a lot.” And with these words, he left.
Later, people use this phrase to mean “Practice makes perfect”.
北宋時期，有個技藝高超的射手。有壹天，他在訓練場上練習射箭，引來了壹大群人觀看，大家都稱贊他的技藝，他感到非常驕傲。但他發現人群中有個賣油翁只是淡淡的點點頭，這使得他很不高興。
他就問那老頭：“妳會射箭嗎？”
“不會。”
“妳認為我的技術如何？”
“壹般。沒什麽特別的，妳只能對付固定的東西，僅此而已。”
“妳會幹什麽？”
這個老頭沒有回答。他把壹個葫蘆放在地上，接著把壹枚銅錢放在瓶口。然後從他的大油壺裏舀起壹勺油。
從高處往放在地上的葫蘆裏倒。只見那油就像線壹樣從銅錢中間的小洞裏滴下去，壹滴都沒有漏出來。圍觀者都驚呆了。而這個賣油翁卻說：“其實沒什麽大不了的，只不過是天天練的結果。”說完，他就離開了。