8 Chinese Idioms About Teamwork & Cooperation

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...

Accept all with open mind

Literal: Sea accepts hundred rivers

The sea (海) takes in (纳) a hundred (百) rivers (川) and is still the sea — that is the whole argument, and it is why the image is the sea and not a lake. The line is Lin Zexu's, the first half of a couplet normally quoted whole: 海纳百川，有容乃大；壁立千仞，无欲则刚 — the sea admits a hundred rivers, and capacity is wh...

Value harmony above all

Literal: Value harmony as precious

This descends from the Analects, where Master You says that in the working of ritual, harmony (和) is what is precious (贵) — 礼之用，和为贵. The claim is more careful than it looks: harmony is the point of the forms, but he adds at once that harmony pursued without the forms will not stand. Modern usage adv...

Treat others as yourself

Literal: Exchange heart for heart

To exchange (换) one heart (心) for another, using (以) your own as the thing you give. The image is of trust as a swap rather than a demand: you put your own candour in first and take the other person's in return. This is a common set phrase rather than a classical idiom — it has no locus classicus an...

Offer modest view to inspire better

Literal: Throw brick attract jade

Zhao Gu was the better poet, and Chang Jian wanted a poem out of him. Knowing Zhao Gu would visit the Lingyan Temple, Chang Jian went first and wrote two lines on the wall; Zhao Gu came, saw them, and completed the quatrain. Chang Jian's couplet was much the weaker, which is the point of the anecdot...

Adopt the customs of where you are

Literal: Enter village follow customs

Enter (入) the district (乡), follow (随) its customs (俗). The older formulation, about entering a place and going by its rules, is in the Zhuangzi, and the four-character version is fixed in Chan collections. It is worth noticing what it does not say: nothing about approving of the customs, only about...

Two goals with one action

Literal: One stone two birds

A calque rather than a classical idiom: one (一) stone (石), two (二) birds (鸟), taken into Chinese from the English 'kill two birds with one stone' by way of the Japanese 一石二鳥, during the decades of heavy borrowing around the turn of the twentieth century. It is worth knowing precisely because it feel...