8 Luminous Chinese Idioms for Lantern Festival (元宵节)

Overestimate oneself

Literal: Small kingdom thinks itself great

Yelang (夜郎) was a small state on the southwestern frontier of the Han empire. The Records of the Grand Historian relates that when a Han envoy reached it, its king asked whether Yelang or Han was the larger — a question that makes sense only to someone who has never left his own valley. The phrase f...

Open threats easier than hidden

Literal: An open spear is easy to dodge

The saying is a matched pair and only works whole: 明枪易躲，暗箭难防 — an open (明) spear (枪) is easy (易) to dodge (躲), a hidden arrow hard to guard against. It belongs to Yuan drama and later vernacular. The visible threat is named in order to be dismissed, so that the concealed one can be the point, and Ch...

Hope appears in darkness

Literal: Dark willows bright flowers

This comes from Lu You's Visiting a Village West of the Mountains, of the Southern Song: 山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村 — where the hills fold and the streams double back and there seems to be no road, the willows darken (柳暗) and the flowers brighten (花明), and there is another village. The turn arrives at the mome...

Perceive tiny details

Literal: See autumn down clear

This descends from the Mencius, where a man claims sight clear (明) enough to make out (察) the tip of an autumn (秋) hair (毫) — the fine down animals grow as the year turns, proverbially the smallest visible thing — yet cannot see a cartload of firewood. Mencius uses it to expose selective attention r...

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...

Work through the entire night

Literal: Through night reach dawn

Through (通) the night (宵) and reaching (达) daybreak (旦). 旦 is a picture of the sun above the horizon line, so the phrase names its own endpoint: the work stops when the light comes, not when it is finished. That is the difference between this and simply working late. Examination cramming, emergency ...

Protect oneself from danger wisely

Literal: Wise person protects self

This comes from an ode in the Book of Songs praising Zhong Shanfu's service to King Xuan: 既明且哲，以保其身 — being both clear-sighted and wise, he thereby preserves (保) himself (身). The one who is discerning (明哲) comes to no harm because he sees things as they are, and the poem has no treacherous court in ...

Too clever for one's own good

Literal: Self make cleverness

This is from the Book of Documents, which warns against making (作) oneself (自) clever (聪明) — that is, against substituting your own ingenuity for the established measure. The fault it names is not stupidity but misplaced confidence: the person is genuinely trying to improve on something and has misj...