Archive for the 'Chinese Idioms' Category

Chinese Idiom: 鹬蚌相争 (yù bàng xiāng zhēng)

孙智谦 on 18 Sep 2007

 
Idiom's illustration
 
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.
 

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Chinese Idiom: 自相矛盾 (zì xiāng máo dùn)

孙智谦 on 06 Sep 2007

 
Spear and shield
 
Here’s another Chinese idiom with an interesting story. The idiomatic English translation of 自相矛盾 (zì xiāng máo dùn) is “contradicting oneself”. The story behind it goes like this:
 
In ancient times, there was a sword and shield salesman who would yell out to people passing by, “My spears are the sharpest in the world and can pierce anything.” But with the very next breath, he would say, “My shields are the strongest in the world, and nothing can penetrate them!” One day, someone asked him, “What happens if someone throws one of your spears at one of your shields?”
 
That’s where the story ends, and it’s where today’s idiom and the Chinese word for contradiction (矛盾 - máo dùn), literally meaning spear shield, come from.
 

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Chinese Idiom: 如鱼得水 (rú yú dé shuǐ)

孙智谦 on 31 Aug 2007

 
fish in water
 
In light of the fact that I don’t feel like making fun of the news lately and that most of the China-related news involves more and more product recalls, I thought I’d post something different, the story and meaning behind a Chinese idiom. I’ll probably make it a pretty regular thing.
 
For the most part, Chinese idioms are just a few words long, and they’re extremely misleading. If you don’t know the stories behind the idioms when you first see or hear them, you’ll probably end up forming the wrong conclusion as to what they mean. Of course, once you understand the stories behind them, they make perfect sense. They’re kind of like cultural inside jokes.
 
Today’s idiom is actually kind of rare in that you might actually get the meaning of it by just hearing it used in a conversation. The English translation of 如鱼得水 (rú yú dé shuǐ) is “to feel just like a fish in water”. The story behind it goes like this:
 
During China’s Three Kingdoms Period, a man named Liu Bei went to Hubei Province three different times to ask a guy named Zhuge Liang for help with military affairs and politics. Finally, Zhuge Liang relented and helped him, and as a result they became the closest of friends. Liu Bei told his ministers, “Having Zhuge Liang to assist me, I feel just like a stranded fish that has been put back in the water.”
 
The idiom is used to describe finding the perfect companion or situation, known in some [non-Chinese] circles as Shade Luck.
 

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