One of the great joys of my freshman-year humanities sequence was reading the Zhuangzi, and I still have the book we used on my shelf. I'm not an expert of the Chinese of that era, but I've heard the original is extremely vibrant and playful, so choosing the right translation is critical if you're reading the text for the first time.

Here's one of the more famous passages from the Zhuangzi as told in the translation we used (The Essential Chuang Tzu, by Sam Hamill and J. P. Seaton):

> Long ago, Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly fluttering among trees, doing as he pleased, completely unaware of a Chuang Chou. A sudden awakening, and there, looking a little out of sorts, was Chuang Chou. Now, I don't know whether it is Chou who dreamed he was a butterfly, or whether a butterfly dreams he's Chuang Chou. But between Chuang Chou and the butterfly, we ought to be able to find some sort of distinction. This is what's known as Things Changing.