During the Spring and Autumn period, a severe famine struck the state of Qi, leaving many people starving and on the brink of death.
A wealthy miser named Qian Ao, known for his stinginess, had hoarded vast riches and grain. To appear as a great philanthropist during a famine, he set up a porridge stand by the roadside to feed the starving. One day, a gaunt man staggered by, barely able to walk, his sleeves covering his face. Qian Ao, holding a bowl of porridge in his left hand and a ladle in his right, shouted arrogantly, "Hey, come here and eat!" The man lifted his head, glared at Qian Ao, and declared, "It is precisely because I refuse to accept handouts offered with such contempt that I have ended up in this state!" Qian Ao, stunned, immediately apologized, but the man refused to eat and soon starved to death. This story reminds us that true charity must be given with dignity, not arrogance.
One day, a starving man shuffled over, covering his face with a tattered sleeve and dragging broken shoes. Qian Ao saw him, immediately filled a bowl of porridge and a bowl of vegetable soup, and shouted contemptuously, "Hey! Come here! I'll give you food!"
Qian Ao had assumed the starving man would be grateful and come over to eat the porridge. But to his surprise, the man lifted his head, glared at Qian Ao with contempt, and dismissed the food with a sneer, saying, "Let me tell you—I've ended up like this precisely because I refuse to eat food offered with contempt. You'd better pack up your hypocritical charity!"
With that, the starving man stumbled away, but he had not gone far before he collapsed from hunger and died.
Later, the idiom "food offered with contempt" came to describe humiliating charity, while "refusing food offered with contempt" expresses rejecting such insulting alms.
Source: *The Book of Rites*, Chapter "Tan Gong II"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "嗟来之食" came to describe humiliating charity, while "refusing food offered with contempt" expresses rejecting such insulting alms.