8 Chinese Idioms About Preparation & Planning Ahead (未雨绸缪)

Prepare before problems arise

Literal: Mend the windows before it rains

This one comes from the Book of Songs, where a bird strips mulberry roots to bind (绸缪) its window and door before (未) the rain (雨) comes. The bird is speaking after already losing its young, which gives the image its urgency: preparation is described by something that has learned the hard way. Note ...

Have clear plan beforehand

Literal: Bamboo ready in heart

This descends from Su Shi's account of the painter Wen Tong of the Northern Song, who held that to paint bamboo (竹) one must first have the finished bamboo complete within the breast (胸有成竹) — and then work fast, before the image fades. The idiom is about the completeness of the mental picture, not a...

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 ...

Less effort, better results

Literal: Half effort double result

This one comes from the Mencius, which argues that acting at the right moment takes half (半) the effort (事) of the ancients and produces double (倍) the result (功). Mencius's point is about timing, not technique: the same work done when conditions are ready yields disproportionately more. An approach...

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...

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...

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...

Effort is eventually repaid

Literal: Heaven's way rewards diligence

Heaven's way (天道) repays (酬) diligence (勤). 酬 is the word for requiting a debt or returning a toast, so the claim is transactional: the effort is owed something, and the universe is the party that settles. That is a stronger position than simply hoping hard work pays off, and it is close to the argu...