A swan feather sent from a thousand lǐ (里) away
Refers to a gift that has deep meaning despite not inherently being valuable or significant
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这是我到欧洲旅游带回来的手工艺品，千里鹅毛，请您收下 | Zhè shì wǒ dào ōuzhōu lǚyóu dài huílái de shǒu gōngyìpǐn, qiānlǐ émáo, qǐng nín shōu xià
This is a handicraft I brought back from my trip to Europe. It has great thought behind it. Please do accept it.
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小朋友捐给灾民的钱虽然不多，却是千里鹅毛，爱心感动人 | Xiǎopéngyǒu juān gěi zāimín de qián suīrán bù duō, què shì qiānlǐ émáo, àixīn gǎndòng rén
Although the children's donations to the victims weren't much, but thought behind it moved people deeply
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千里鹅毛 (qiān lǐ é máo)
千里寄鹅毛 (qiān lǐ jì é máo)
The bird in this story is a swan (天鹅, tiān'é), not a goose (鹅, é)
《梅圣俞寄银杏》(Méi Shèng Yú Jì Yín Xìng), a work by the Northern Song Dynasty (北宋, Běi Sòng) writer and statesman 欧阳修 (Ōu Yáng Xiū). (Note: 欧阳 is the surname, while 修 is the given name)
In the Táng Dynasty (唐618 - 907), a chief magistrate in Yúnnán (云南) wanted to offer a rare and precious swan that he'd found as tribute to the emperor. He ordered a man named 缅伯高 (Miǎn Bó Gāo) to do the actual delivering, and 缅伯高 and his attendants promptly started the long and arduous trek to the capital city of Cháng'ān (长安, or modern day 西安 (Xī'ān)). 缅伯高 took his job extremely seriously, and though the difficult days exhausted him, he made a point to personally feed and care for the swan.
When the company was relatively close to arriving at the palace, they stopped by a lake to rest. Inside its cage, the swan moved around agitatedly, and 缅伯高 figured that he could kill two birds with one stone: he needed to bathe the animal since it was dusty from the trip, and he could let it stretch its wings. He removed the animal from the cage, hugged it very tightly, and brought it to the water's edge. At first, the swan drank water as 缅伯高 carefully bathed it, but then suddenly, it wiggled free of his grasp, flapped its wings, and soared off into the sky. 缅伯高 surged forward, but he was only able to grab a few feathers, and he could only watch helplessly as the swan flew out of sight.
When the reality of the situation registered, 缅伯高 didn't know what to do. Finally, though, he came up with an idea. He got a piece of pure white silk, carefully wrapped the swan feathers within, and then on the top of the silk bundle wrote a poem. From there, he and his companions continued their journey to see the emperor.
When they reached court in Cháng'ān, 缅伯高 presented the silken bundle of feathers to a confused emperor. The emperor read the poem and listened to 缅伯高's whole story. Then, to 缅伯高's absolute relief, he praised 缅伯高's actions and rewarded him handsomely.