10 Chinese Idioms About Opportunity & Timing

Advantage from close connections

Literal: Pavilion close to water

Su Lin, a minor officer under Fan Zhongyan, was passed over while Fan promoted others around him, and presented a couplet instead of a complaint: 近水楼台先得月，向阳花木易为春 — the tower (楼台) nearest (近) the water (水) gets the moon first, and flowers facing the sun come to spring early. Fan took the point and pr...

Prepare before problems arise

Literal: Mend the windows before it rains

This one comes from the Book of Songs, where a bird strips mulberry roots to bind (绸缪) its window and door before (未) the rain (雨) comes. The bird is speaking after already losing its young, which gives the image its urgency: preparation is described by something that has learned the hard way. Note ...

Have clear plan beforehand

Literal: Bamboo ready in heart

This descends from Su Shi's account of the painter Wen Tong of the Northern Song, who held that to paint bamboo (竹) one must first have the finished bamboo complete within the breast (胸有成竹) — and then work fast, before the image fades. The idiom is about the completeness of the mental picture, not a...

Fortune finally turns your way

Literal: Time comes and fortune turns

The hour arrives (时来) and the luck turns (运转). Both halves assume a wheel: fortune in this vocabulary is not distributed but cyclical, so a bad stretch is a position on the turn rather than a settled condition. That is the consolation being offered. It belongs to ordinary speech and to fortune-telli...

Things happen when ready

Literal: Melon ripe stem falls

When the melon (瓜) is ripe (熟), the stem (蒂) drops (落) of itself. The observation is agricultural and precise: a melon taken early has to be pulled, and one left to its time separates without force. The phrase is used of anything that cannot usefully be hurried — a negotiation, a diagnosis, a decisi...

Success comes naturally

Literal: Water comes channel forms

Su Shi wrote it to a friend who was worrying ahead of events: when the water arrives (水到) the channel forms (渠成), there is no need to plan for it in advance. The image is of water finding its own course rather than an engineer cutting one. What the phrase claims is not that effort is unnecessary but...

Perfect moment of opportunity

Literal: Wind cloud gather meeting

Wind (风) and cloud (云) coming together (际会) at the same moment. The Book of Changes supplies the underlying image, where clouds follow the dragon and wind follows the tiger, so the meeting of the two is the sign of something considerable arriving. The phrase names the convergence rather than the eve...

Success after long preparation

Literal: Thick accumulation thin launch

This is from Su Shi of the Song dynasty, who advised a friend to observe widely but take sparingly, to accumulate thickly and release thinly — 博观而约取，厚积而薄发. Deep (厚) accumulation (积) should issue in slight (薄) output (发). The counsel is against publishing early and often: what is put out should be a ...

Press on despite awareness of challenges

Literal: Know difficulty yet advance

To know (知) the difficulty (难) and advance (进) anyway. It is built as the deliberate opposite of 知难而退, withdrawing in the face of difficulty, and the pair is used against each other constantly in Chinese. What both share is the first half: the knowing is not in dispute, and the phrase specifically e...

Advance boldly through difficulty

Literal: Rapids bravely advance

To advance (进) bravely (勇) into the rapid current (急流). It exists as the deliberate counterpart of 急流勇退, withdrawing at the height of the rapids, and the two are used as a matched pair about careers. Where the retreat version praises knowing when to stop, this one praises pressing on precisely where...