10 Chinese Idioms About Loyalty & Devotion

Face challenges together

Literal: Cross river in same boat

This idiom shares deep connections with China's river-centric civilization, where crossing (济) together (共) in the same boat (同舟) was often a matter of life and death. Ancient texts tell of strangers becoming allies when facing treacherous waters, especially along the mighty Yangtze. During the Thre...

Share hardships together

Literal: Share boat in wind and rain

Sharing a boat (同舟) through wind (风) and rain (雨). The Sunzi supplies the underlying observation: the men of Wu and the men of Yue hate one another, but caught in the same boat in a gale they will help each other like the left hand and the right. That is the argument the phrase carries — not that th...

Neighbours look out for each other

Literal: Watch and help each other

To keep watch (守望) and help one another (相助). The phrase appears in the Mencius, in the description of the well-field system, where families holding land in common were to go out and come in together, guard against thieves together, and support one another in illness. What it names is a specific arr...

Keep integrity without compromise

Literal: Keep right no flattery

To keep to (守) what is upright (正) and not (不) bend (阿). 阿 is the load-bearing character: it means to lean toward, to curry favour, to give someone the benefit they have not earned, and the whole phrase turns on refusing that particular motion rather than on virtue in the abstract. It belongs to the...

Give out until nothing is left

Literal: Spring silkworm until death

This image comes from Li Shangyin's Untitled poem of the Tang dynasty: 春蚕到死丝方尽，蜡炬成灰泪始干 — the spring (春) silkworm (蚕) spins until death (死) before its thread is done, and the candle's tears dry only when it has burned to ash. The couplet is a love poem, and the silkworm is a figure for longing that d...

Help in time of need

Literal: Send coal in snow

To send (送) charcoal (炭) into (中) the snow (雪). What the image fixes is timing rather than generosity: charcoal is cheap, and in a snowstorm it is the only thing worth having, so the value of the gift is entirely in when it arrives. Chinese sets it directly against 锦上添花, adding flowers to brocade, a...

Keep promises faithfully

Literal: One promise thousand gold

Ji Bu of the early Han was reliable enough that a saying circulated in Chu: a hundred catties of gold are worth less than one promise (一诺) from Ji Bu — hence a promise worth a thousand (千) in gold (金). The Records of the Grand Historian preserves it. He is not Ji Zha of Wu, whose story about keeping...

Maintain perfect integrity despite temptation

Literal: Sit in lap not disorderly

Liuxia Hui, caught outside the city gate on a freezing night, is said to have sheltered a woman who would otherwise have died, holding her (坐怀) inside his robe until morning without the slightest impropriety (不乱). The story is told about him rather than by him, and it became the standard Chinese dem...

Help each other in adversity

Literal: Moisten each other with spittle

The Zhuangzi: when the spring dries up the fish are left together on land, blowing damp air on one another and wetting each other (相濡) with foam (以沫) — and then the sentence turns, 不如相忘于江湖, better than this would be to forget each other in the rivers and lakes. Zhuangzi is arguing against the situat...

Treat each other with respect

Literal: Respect each other like guests

The Zuo Zhuan records an official passing a field and seeing a man's wife bring him his meal there: the two treated one another 如宾, as guests, and on the strength of that the man was recommended for office. The reasoning is that courtesy sustained where nobody is watching is evidence of character. M...