Chinese Idiom: 鹬蚌相争 (yù bàng xiāng zhēng)
Written By: Due-East on September 18, 2007
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| Here’s another Chinese idiom. The idiomatic English translation of 鹬蚌相争 (yù bàng xiāng zhēng) is “a snipe and a clam locked in combat”. Without hearing the story behind it, this seems to be ridiculously cryptic. But once you know the story, it makes perfect sense. The story goes… |
| One day, a clam was sitting on the beach and opened its shell to sun itself. Suddenly, a snipe stuck its beak in the clam to get a quick meal. The clam closed its shell immediately, trapping the snipe’s beak inside. They were quickly at an impasse: the clam refused to open its shell, and the snipe refused to remove its beak. Eventually, a fisherman happened upon them and caught them both. |
| The meaning of the idiom is that when two sides stubbornly contend, it’s a third party that benefits. |
