12 Chinese Idioms with the Most Famous Origin Stories

Fickle and inconsistent

Literal: Three in the morning, four at night

The Zhuangzi tells of a monkey keeper who, running short, told his monkeys they would have three acorns in the morning (朝三) and four at night (暮四). The monkeys were furious. He offered four in the morning and three at night, and they were delighted. Zhuangzi's point is about the sage, who wearies ne...

Sincere invitation

Literal: Three visits to the thatched cottage

Zhuge Liang's own memorial to the throne is the source, and it is worth reading for the tone: the late emperor, he wrote, did not think me contemptible, and three times (三顾) came to see me in my thatched hut (茅庐) among the fields. Liu Bei was a warlord and Zhuge Liang was twenty-six and unemployed. ...

Fear from past trauma

Literal: A bird startled by the bow

Geng Lei told the King of Wei he could bring down a bird without an arrow. A goose came over, he plucked the empty bowstring, and it dropped. Asked how, he said he had read the bird: 飞徐者，故疮痛也；鸣悲者，久失群也 — it flew slowly because an old wound still hurt, and cried sadly because it had long been separate...

Ephemeral dreams

Literal: A dream of yellow millet

A Tang tale has a discontented young man at an inn in Handan complaining of his prospects to a Daoist, who lends him a pillow. He dreams an entire life — a good marriage, high office, disgrace, exile, recall, wealth, grandchildren, and death at eighty. He wakes. The innkeeper's yellow millet (黄粱), w...

Act, don't just dream

Literal: By the deep pool, longing for the fish

Standing over (临) the pool (渊) envying (羡) the fish (鱼) — better, the Huainanzi says, to go home and knit a net. The Book of Han repeats it as advice to an emperor about reform. Two things make the phrase sharper than a general injunction to act. The fish are real and reachable, so the wanting is no...

Reunion after separation

Literal: Broken mirror reunited

Xu Deyan, married to the princess of Lechang as the Chen dynasty collapsed, broke (破) a bronze mirror (镜) in two and gave her half, telling her to have it sold in the capital market on the fifteenth day of the first month. The dynasty fell, she was taken into the household of the Sui minister Yang S...

Inflexible adherence

Literal: Zheng man buys shoes

A man (人) of Zheng (郑), wanting to buy (买) shoes (履), measured his foot with a cord and left the cord at home. Reaching the market he found he had forgotten it and went back for it, and by the time he returned the market had closed. Asked why he had not simply tried the shoes on his feet, he said: I...

Grassroots uprising

Literal: Raise pole and rise

Jia Yi's essay on the failings of Qin describes the rising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang: they cut wood for weapons and raised (揭) bamboo poles (竿) for banners, and so (而) rose (起), and the empire answered like a shadow. The detail is the whole point — the rebellion that toppled the first empire began ...

Deserted; hardly a visitor

Literal: Door can catch sparrows

Zhai Gong, when he held high office, had a doorway crowded with visitors. Dismissed, he found the gateway (门) so empty that one could (可) have strung a net (罗) across it for sparrows (雀). Restored to office, he saw the visitors coming back, and wrote on his gate that only in death and life is friend...

Short-sighted solution

Literal: Drink poison to quench thirst

The 鸩 is a poisonous bird of legend whose feathers, steeped in wine, made a reliable and untraceable method of murder. Huo Xu, defending his uncle against a capital charge, argued to the authorities that no man would do what was alleged, since it would be like drinking (饮) that wine to stop (止) thir...

Extreme discomfort

Literal: As if sitting on needles

Du Xi served as tutor to a crown prince who did not want advice and grew to resent receiving it. The History of the Jin records that the prince had needles (针) put into the felt (毡) of the mat where Du Xi sat. Sitting (坐) as if (如) on needles is what the phrase describes, and its modern use is entir...

Intense and vigorous

Literal: Like fire, like white flowers

Before an assembly of the states, the king of Wu drew up his army in three enormous blocks and marched them out at dawn: one all in white with white banners and armour, so that from a distance the field looked like (如) reed-flowers (荼) in bloom, and one all in red, which looked like fire (火). The Di...