来龙去脉

Pronunciation: lái lóng qù mài Literal meaning: Ridge it comes from, stream it runs to

Origin & Usage

Both halves are technical terms from geomancy, and they are not the same kind of thing: 龙 is the rise and fall of a mountain range, and the 来龙 is its main peak, the height a site's energy is held to come down from; 脉 is the stream in the valley, and the 去脉 is its main channel, where the water goes. So the pair is a ridge and a watercourse — the ground read upward and downward at once, which was the geomancer's job. Transferred to affairs it asks for the same thing: not what happened, but where it came from and where it went. 把来龙去脉讲清楚 is a request for considerably more than a summary.

Examples

English: "Before making a decision, we need to understand the full context."

Chinese: 做决定之前，我们需要了解事情的来龙去脉。