8 Longevity Chinese Idioms for Double Ninth Festival (重阳节)

Progress despite difficulties

Literal: Carry weight march forward

Carrying (负) a weight (重) and walking on (前行). This one is modern rather than classical, and it owes its currency to a line that circulates widely: if your days are quiet, it is because somebody else is carrying the load out of sight. Nothing in it marks the burden is deserved, or temporary, or noti...

Words carry great weight

Literal: Words heavy as nine cauldrons

The nine bronze cauldrons cast by Yu were the physical emblem of the mandate, passed from dynasty to dynasty and impossibly heavy. The Records of the Grand Historian gives the phrase its setting: after Mao Sui talked Chu into an alliance, the Lord of Pingyuan said that Mao's single visit had made Zh...

Make difficult look easy

Literal: Lift heavy as light

To lift (举) what is heavy (重) as though (若) it were light (轻). The phrase belongs to Qing literary criticism, where Zhao Yi used it of Su Shi's poetry: the argument bright, the brushwork sharp, weight carried so easily that reading it you would think no great effort had gone in, when the full force ...

Progress from basic to advanced

Literal: Enter hall reach inner room

Confucius said of his disciple Zilu that he had ascended (登) to the hall (堂) but not yet entered (入) the inner room (室) — competent, and not yet finished. The architecture is doing exact work: a Chinese house put the hall first and the private chambers behind it, so the sequence is fixed and the sec...

Able to carry great responsibility

Literal: Bear weight reach far

In the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Pang Tong assessed Gu Shao as an ox that could bear a heavy load (负重) over a long distance (致远) — steady rather than quick, and valuable for exactly that. In the same breath he called Lu Ji a nag with a turn of speed. Both are working animals, and the whole comp...

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...

Reach highest attainable level

Literal: Climb peak reach limit

In the Shishuo Xinyu, Sima Yu — later Emperor Jianwen of Jin — answers the Buddhist claim that refining the spirit can make a man a sage: 不知便可登峰造极不？然陶练之功，尚不可诬 — I do not know whether that climbs (登) the peak (峰) and arrives (造) at the furthest point (极), but the work of refinement cannot be dismisse...

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...