8 Chinese Idioms About Confusion & Being Lost

Overly fearful and suspicious

Literal: Wind sound crane call

After the rout at the Fei River, Fu Jian's enormous army broke and ran, and the History of the Jin says that the sound (声) of the wind (风) and the cry (唳) of a crane (鹤) were enough to convince the fleeing men that the Jin army was on them. They slept in the open and starved on the road, and most of...

Make a gift of something that isn't yours

Literal: Borrow flower offer Buddha

The Buddhist life of the Buddha's former births has the young Sumedha, wanting to make an offering to the buddha Dipankara and owning nothing, buy flowers from a girl who gives them on condition that she share the merit. Borrowing flowers (借花) to offer to the Buddha (献佛) is therefore not condemned i...

Needlessly suspicious

Literal: Bow in cup snake shadow

Ying Shao's Comprehensive Meaning of Customs tells of a guest who saw a snake (蛇) in the wine he had been handed, drank it out of politeness, and went home ill for months. His host, working out where the man had been sitting, found a painted bow (弓) on the wall and its reflection (影) lying in the cu...

Courage under pressure

Literal: Face danger without fear

Meeting (临) danger (危) without (不) fear (惧). The formulation descends from the Zhuangzi's praise of the man who faces great peril without alarm, and it hardened into a standard term of commendation in later histories and biographies. What it denotes is composure under threat rather than absence of t...

Extreme paranoia sees threats everywhere

Literal: Grass trees all soldiers

At the Battle of the Fei River in 383 CE, Fu Jian of the Former Qin led an enormous army against the far smaller forces of the Eastern Jin. Surveying the Jin lines from a city wall, he mistook the grass (草) and trees (木) on distant Bagong Mountain for massed soldiers (兵), taking the entire hillside ...

Rush eagerly to be first, not last

Literal: Compete first fear last

The competitive atmosphere of the Han Dynasty imperial court gave birth to this phrase describing the twin drives of striving to be first (争先) while fearing to be last (恐后). Court historians noted how this combination of ambition and anxiety drove official behavior. Tang Dynasty observers saw the sa...

Completely free from worry or concern

Literal: High pillow no worry

In the Strategies of the Warring States, Feng Xuan tells Lord Mengchang that a wily rabbit has three burrows and only just escapes with its life, and that with one refuge his lord 未得高枕而卧, cannot yet sleep on a high pillow (高枕). He builds the other two, and then tells him he may 高枕为乐, take his ease. ...

Worry about the home front left behind

Literal: Backward glance's worry

The worry (忧) that comes from looking back (后顾). The image is military and precise: a commander who must keep glancing behind at an unsecured rear cannot commit to what is in front of him, so the phrase names a specific tax on effectiveness rather than anxiety in general. It is most often used in th...