Curved Bamboo

A bamboo tree was bent down from the weight of the snow on it. Don't you think this is symbolic of something important?  I feel like this is pointing us to  something instructive, moralistic, metaphorical, and ironic. Just like what some Chinese wise man said. But ...I can't recall what is it. Let me think.

There is a Japanese saying: "Willow branches can never be broken" (YANAGI NI EDA-ORE NASHI). Willow branches are always hanging down to the ground and not firm. So they don't seem to be strong. But even if the heavy snow piled on them, they are only bent down and hardly broken. This saying means that the real strength is a flexibility. It's very close but I think there must be something else more suitable for this curved bamboo.

Speaking of Japanese saying, there is an interesting story. There is a saying: "Kindness is not for helping others". Many people believe the meaning of this saying as that "being kind to a person is not necessarily beneficial to him/her because we should solve our problem by ourselves."  But its actual meaning is: "If we are kind to others, we will get kindness back. So we should be kind for ourselves." The real meaning is more selfish than the common belief. It is off topic from the bamboo though.

I show you another funny Japanese expression. We sometimes call the front zipper of the pants as "social window" (SHAKAI NO MADO). As you are guessing, we say like this because the zipper is the border of the public/society and our very 'private' area.
Since my head was filled with that bamboo, I forgot to zip up my pants in the whole of today. So I had walked around outside keeping my social window widely opened. While I went to the bank, supermarket, drugstore, and video shop, my window was unlocked to everyone in the society. But I did not intend to offend by such an antisocial act. What a shame...

Hey, finally I figured out the meaning of the bamboo! It had warned me to "look down".