12 Flowing Chinese Idioms About Water (水)

Persistence achieves anything

Literal: Water drops pierce stone

The Song collection Helin Yulu attaches this to the magistrate Zhang Guaiya, who had a clerk flogged for a single copper coin, was told he would not dare behead him for it, and wrote the judgment before doing exactly that: a coin a day is a thousand coins in a thousand days, and 绳锯木断，水滴石穿 — a rope u...

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...

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...

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...

Clear and calm mind

Literal: Clear mirror still water

This metaphor comes from the Zhuangzi, which observes that no one takes their reflection from running water but from water that is still — 人莫鉴于流水而鉴于止水. A clear (明) mirror (镜) and still (止) water (水) both show what is in front of them exactly, and both do so only because nothing is disturbing them. T...

In perfect element

Literal: Fish finds water

In the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei answers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who were unhappy at how close he had grown to the newly recruited Zhuge Liang: 孤之有孔明，犹鱼之有水也 — my having Kongming is like a fish (鱼) having (得) water (水) — and asks them to say no more about it. The history puts the three of...

Remember your roots

Literal: Drink water think source

Yu Xin, writing in the sixth century, put it as 落其实者思其树，饮其流者怀其源 — who eats the fruit thinks of the tree, who drinks from the stream remembers its source. The four-character form keeps the second half: drink (饮) the water (水), think (思) of the source (源). It concerns debts owed rather than gratitude ...

Absolutely flawless and thorough

Literal: No water drop leaks

So tightly made that not a drop (滴) of water (水) leaks (漏) through it. Vernacular fiction applies it to speech and to plans rather than to roofs — an account with no gap anywhere in it, a scheme with nothing left uncovered — and water is the test because it will find any opening that exists. Alibis,...

Perfect artistic understanding between friends

Literal: High mountain flowing water

The Liezi records that Bo Ya played the qin and Zhong Ziqi listened. When Bo Ya's mind was on high (高) mountains (山), Zhong Ziqi said: how towering, like Mount Tai. When it turned to flowing (流) water (水), he said: how vast, like the Yangtze and the Yellow River. Whatever Bo Ya had in mind, Zhong Zi...

Actions cannot be undone

Literal: Spilled water hard to recover

This descends from the story of Jiang Ziya, whose wife left him during his years of poverty and sought to return once he had risen. He poured a basin of water on the ground and invited her to gather it up. Water once overturned (覆水) cannot be recovered (难收). The story is unsentimental about the asym...

Fight with total commitment having no retreat

Literal: Back to water one battle

For a single battle (一战) Han Xin drew his army up with the river (水) at their backs (背), which every officer present knew was the one formation the manuals forbid. They won, and afterwards they asked him why. Because these were levies, he said — throw them where they can run and they will run; put t...

To eagerly await someone or something

Literal: Gazing through autumn waters

This descends from drama and verse of the Yuan and after, where autumn water (秋水) is a standing figure for clear bright eyes. To look until the autumn waters are worn through (望穿) is to watch for someone so long and so hard that the eyes themselves give out. The hyperbole is about duration, and the ...