10 Chinese Idioms for New Beginnings in the New Year

Create new from old

Literal: Push old produce new

Pushing out (推) the stale (陈) so that the new (新) can come forth (出). The early sense is physical, used of the body and of stored grain long before it meant anything about art or policy: clearing what has gone old to make room. That history settles what the phrase does not mean. The old is displaced...

A refreshing new experience

Literal: Ears and eyes completely renewed

Ears (耳) and eyes (目) made new (一新) all at once. The claim is about the apparatus rather than the object: what has changed is the freshness of the perception brought to a thing, which is why the phrase fits a redesign, a first visit and a change of management equally well. It works as unambiguous pr...

Changing rapidly; improving daily

Literal: Day new month different

New (新) by the day (日), different (异) by the month (月). The phrasing echoes the basin inscription quoted in the Great Learning — 苟日新，日日新，又日新, if you can renew yourself one day then do it daily, and again — where the subject is moral cultivation and the renewal is deliberate. The idiom kept the rhyth...

Fortune finally turns your way

Literal: Time comes and fortune turns

The hour arrives (时来) and the luck turns (运转). Both halves assume a wheel: fortune in this vocabulary is not distributed but cyclical, so a bad stretch is a position on the turn rather than a settled condition. That is the consolation being offered. It belongs to ordinary speech and to fortune-telli...

Win at the very start; immediate success

Literal: Flag opens, obtain victory

The banners (旗) unfurled (开) and the victory (胜) taken (得). The picture is of an army winning its first engagement of a campaign, on the day the flags come out, so the phrase concerns the beginning rather than the whole. That is what makes it a blessing instead of a report: it is said before somethi...

Latecomers surpass the early starters

Literal: Latecomers end up on top

Ji An, passed over while men appointed after him were promoted past him, said it to Emperor Wu's face: Your Majesty uses officials the way one stacks firewood — the ones that come later (后来) go on top (居上). It was a complaint, and a pointed one. Modern usage has inverted it completely and made it 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 ...

Linking tradition with innovation

Literal: Receive past, initiate future

To carry on (承) what came before (前) and open the way for (启) what follows (后). Both verbs are transitive and the phrase names a position rather than an achievement — the person or work is the joint between two periods, and its value lies in belonging fully to neither. Chinese literary and intellect...

After hardship comes happiness

Literal: Bitterness ends sweetness comes

The bitter (苦) exhausted (尽) and the sweet (甘) arriving (来). Both are tastes, and the phrase treats a life as something with a flavour that changes, which is gentler than the English idea of a reward for endurance: nothing is being earned, the bitterness is simply running out. That is why it console...

Sudden, remarkable success

Literal: One cry startles everyone

King Zhuang of Chu spent three years on the throne issuing no orders at all. An officer put him a riddle about a bird that for three years had neither stirred its wings nor called, and the king answered that though it had not flown, when it flew it would reach the heavens, and though it had not crie...