一分钱 (Yī Fēn Qián): The Chinese "One Cent" Song About Honesty

Quick answer: 一分钱 (Yī Fēn Qián, "One Cent") is a short, cheerful Chinese children's song from 1963 about a child who finds a one-fen coin on the street and hands it to a police officer. It's one of the most famous "good behavior" songs in Mandarin, and it's simple enough to sing to a baby long before the moral lesson means anything to them.

The lyrics

Chinese	Pinyin	English
我在马路边捡到一分钱	Wǒ zài mǎlù biān jiǎn dào yì fēn qián	I found a one-fen coin by the roadside,
把它交到警察叔叔手里边	Bǎ tā jiāo dào jǐngchá shūshu shǒu lǐ biān	I handed it to the police officer,
叔叔拿着钱	Shūshu ná zhe qián	The officer took the coin,
对我把头点	Duì wǒ bǎ tóu diǎn	And nodded at me,
我高兴地说了声	Wǒ gāoxìng de shuō le shēng	Happily, I said,
叔叔再见	Shūshu zàijiàn	"Goodbye, officer!"

Where it comes from

一分钱 has a clearly documented origin, unlike many folk chants of its era. It was written in 1963 by composer Pan Zhensheng (潘振声), who set both the lyrics and melody after being struck by real children he saw handing small amounts of found money to police officers rather than keeping it. A "分" (fēn) is a unit of Chinese currency worth one-hundredth of a yuan — by the time the song became famous, the coin itself was already a small, almost symbolic amount, which is part of the point: the song isn't about the value of the money, it's about what you do when something small and not-yours crosses your path.

The song became a staple of Chinese children's television and school music programs through the following decades and remains one of the most recognized "moral" children's songs in Mandarin — the rough equivalent, culturally, of a song built entirely around "always tell the truth" or "return what you borrow."

How to sing it with your baby

• Newborn – 6 months: The melody is bright and bouncy, which makes it a nice change of pace from slower lullabies during awake, alert stretches of the day — there's no need for baby to grasp the story yet.
• 6–18 months: Turn "捡到" (jiǎn dào, "found") and "交给" (jiāo gěi, "handed to") into a real action — hand your baby a small, safe object, and have them "give" it to you as you sing, mimicking the coin-to-officer handoff in the song.
• 18 months+: Use the song as a natural entry point for a very simple honesty conversation: if your toddler finds a dropped toy that belongs to someone else, you can reference "一分钱" directly ("像那首歌一样" — "like in that song") as a shorthand for giving it back.

Continue building your song list

This is one of the songs in the collection of Chinese lullabies and nursery rhymes on Twiglet Tales — browse the full set for more songs at every stage, or see the Growth Roadmap for a staged plan beyond songs alone.