10 Respectful Chinese Idioms for Father's Day

Unshakeable despite adversity

Literal: Broken a hundred times, never bending

Cai Yong wrote it on Qiao Xuan's memorial stele: his nature was grave, he disliked show and held to the plain, and he had the bearing of a man who could be broken (折) a hundred (百) times and would not (不) bend (挠), who faced a crisis and could not be moved from his ground. 折 is setbacks 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...

Student surpasses master

Literal: Blue comes from indigo plant

Xunzi opens his chapter on learning with it: 青，取之于蓝，而青于蓝 — blue (青) is taken from (出于) the indigo plant (蓝), and is bluer than the plant. The point is the student's, not the teacher's: nothing is being criticised, and the dye is better precisely because the plant existed. Common speech runs it as 青出...

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...

Already at a very high level of attainment

Literal: Hundred foot pole top

A verse of the Tang Chan master Changsha Jingcen, recorded in the Jingde Chuandenglu: a man at the top of a hundred-foot (百尺) pole (竿头) has attained something, but it is not yet real — he must step forward from there. Standing at the tip already looks like the end of the climb, which is exactly the ...

Unity creates strength

Literal: Many wills make wall

This architectural metaphor shows how many wills (众志) can form (成) an impenetrable wall (城), drawing from ancient Chinese defensive architecture. It gained significance during the Warring States period when city walls required massive coordinated effort to construct and defend. Historical records de...

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...

Success after long preparation

Literal: Thick accumulation thin launch

This is from Su Shi of the Song dynasty, who advised a friend to observe widely but take sparingly, to accumulate thickly and release thinly — 博观而约取，厚积而薄发. Deep (厚) accumulation (积) should issue in slight (薄) output (发). The counsel is against publishing early and often: what is put out should be a ...

Ruin through impatient intervention

Literal: Pull seedlings help growth

This comes from the Mencius. A man of Song, impatient that his seedlings (苗) were not growing (长), went through the field pulling (拔) each one upward to help (助) it along, then came home exhausted to announce what he had done; his son ran out to find every plant dead. Mencius tells it against those ...