Long, long ago in Mongolia, there lived an emperor who was extremely vain and conceited. All he cared about was his appearance.
One morning, as he was checking himself in his bedroom mirrors, the emperor had a shock. There was a white hair sticking up on his head. He shouted for his chief adviser and wanted the white hair to be plucked out and thrown away secretly.
'Your Majesty!' the adviser said. 'It is quite natural for even great emperors like yourself to get white hairs as they grow older.'
The emperor stormed out of his bedroom, vowing to check his head every morning for white hairs and to have them plucked out. The emperor was quite happy about this, until his chief adviser warned him that eventually he would be bald if his servants kept on plucking hairs from his head.
After a great deal of discussion, his courtiers advised the emperor to have his white hairs dyed instead of plucked out.
So every morning when the emperor awoke, a couple of his servants were on standby with a bowl of dye as His Majesty checked himself in the mirror. But the emperor knew that dyeing his hair could not disguise the fact that he was getting older. More drastic measures were needed.