10 Chinese Idioms About Speed & Quickness

Commit with no retreat

Literal: Break pots sink boats

In 207 BCE Xiang Yu took his army across the river to relieve Julu, and then had the boats (舟) sunk (沉) and the cooking pots (釜) smashed (破), keeping three days' rations and nothing else. The Records of the Grand Historian is explicit that this was done to show the troops they would die rather than ...

Misfortune might be a blessing

Literal: Old man loses horse

The Huainanzi tells of a man living out by the frontier, known ever since as the Old Man of the Frontier — 塞翁, from 塞, a border pass, and 翁, an old man. His horse (马) was lost (失), simply ran off. His neighbours came to console him and he asked how they knew it was not good fortune; the horse return...

Progress needs constant effort

Literal: Boat moving against current

A boat (舟) worked (行) against (逆) the current (水). The phrase is nearly always completed by its second half — 不进则退, if you do not advance you fall back — and that clause is the whole argument. What makes the image exact is that holding position is not a rest state: the river is doing work on the hul...

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...

Autumn wind and dew; autumn scenery

Literal: Golden wind jade dew

Golden (金) wind (风) and jade (玉) dew (露) — the autumn wind and the first cold dew, named in the colours of precious things. Qin Guan's lyric fixed the phrase: 金风玉露一相逢，便胜却人间无数, one meeting in the autumn wind and dew outdoes countless meetings in the ordinary world. He is writing about the Herdboy and...

Practice with determination

Literal: Hear the rooster, rise and drill the sword

Zu Ti and Liu Kun shared a bed as junior officials and shared an ambition to see the north recovered. The History of the Jin records that in the middle of the night Zu Ti heard (闻) a cock (鸡) crowing out of hours — an omen ordinarily counted unlucky — kicked Liu Kun awake and said this is not an evi...

Live as a recluse in the wild

Literal: Pillow stone rinse stream

To pillow (枕) on stone (石) and rinse (漱) in the stream (流) is the standard image of the recluse who has declined office and lives off the mountain. Its fame, however, comes from a slip: the New Account of Tales of the World records Sun Chu, meaning to say it, getting it out as 漱石枕流 — rinsing with st...

Adversity is what finishes you

Literal: Works you like jade into completion

This comes from Zhang Zai's Western Inscription of the Song dynasty: 贫贱忧戚，庸玉女于成 — poverty, low station, worry and grief are the means by which you (汝) are worked like jade (玉) into completion (成). Jade is not found finished; it is cut and ground, and the phrase treats hardship as that grinding rathe...

Experience brings wisdom

Literal: Old horse knows way

Returning from a campaign against Guzhu, the army of Duke Huan of Qi lost the road, and Guan Zhong proposed releasing the old horses (老马) and following them: they had walked the route before and would know the way (识途). They did, and the army got home. The Han Feizi tells it. What makes it a story r...

Powerful unstoppable momentum

Literal: Ten thousand horses galloping

Ten thousand (万) horses (马) at full gallop (奔腾). Chinese uses 万 as an intensifier rather than a count, and what the image supplies beyond mere numbers is the ground noise — a mass of animals moving as one thing, felt before it is seen. Poets applied it to rivers in flood and to surf. Modern usage is...