10 Chinese Idioms for Greeting Aunties and Uncles at CNY (阿姨叔叔)

Value harmony above all

Literal: Value harmony as precious

This descends from the Analects, where Master You says that in the working of ritual, harmony (和) is what is precious (贵) — 礼之用，和为贵. The claim is more careful than it looks: harmony is the point of the forms, but he adds at once that harmony pursued without the forms will not stand. Modern usage adv...

Live peacefully and work happily

Literal: Peaceful dwelling happy occupation

Settled in one's dwelling (安居) and content in one's work (乐业). The pairing covers the two halves of an ordinary life, house and livelihood, and Chinese political language has used it for two thousand years as the plain statement of what government is for. That is what gives it its weight: it is a mo...

Golden age of peace and prosperity

Literal: Great peace, flourishing era

A great (太) peace (平) and a flourishing (盛) age (世). 太平 is a term with real weight behind it — the condition of order a dynasty existed to produce, and the name a good many rebellions gave themselves. The phrase claims both halves at once, quiet and prosperous together, since either without the othe...

Smooth sailing; everything going well

Literal: One sail with favorable wind

One (一) sail (帆), the wind (风) following (顺). 顺风 is wind from astern, the condition under which a junk simply goes, and the phrase is a sailor's before it is anyone else's. It survives almost entirely as a wish rather than a description: written on cards, said at departures, and used of a career or ...

Advance steadily; continuous promotion

Literal: Step by step rising high

Step (步) by step (步) rising (升) higher (高). The doubling of 步 is the whole distinction: every other phrase in this family describes a rise that skipped something, and this one insists the stages were all taken. That makes it the safe thing to say, which is why it is a blessing rather than a descript...

Thriving; flourishing

Literal: Flourishing toward prosperity

Tao Yuanming, going home for good, wrote 木欣欣以向荣，泉涓涓而始流 — the trees thriving (欣欣) as they turn toward (向) flourishing (荣), the springs beginning to trickle. 欣 is gladness, so the doubling gives the growth an air of pleasure rather than mere vigour, and the phrase has kept it. Economies, businesses an...

Remember your roots

Literal: Drink water think source

Yu Xin, writing in the sixth century, put it as 落其实者思其树，饮其流者怀其源 — who eats the fruit thinks of the tree, who drinks from the stream remembers its source. The four-character form keeps the second half: drink (饮) the water (水), think (思) of the source (源). It concerns debts owed rather than gratitude ...

Adopt the customs of where you are

Literal: Enter village follow customs

Enter (入) the district (乡), follow (随) its customs (俗). The older formulation, about entering a place and going by its rules, is in the Zhuangzi, and the four-character version is fixed in Chan collections. It is worth noticing what it does not say: nothing about approving of the customs, only about...

Keep promises faithfully

Literal: One promise thousand gold

Ji Bu of the early Han was reliable enough that a saying circulated in Chu: a hundred catties of gold are worth less than one promise (一诺) from Ji Bu — hence a promise worth a thousand (千) in gold (金). The Records of the Grand Historian preserves it. He is not Ji Zha of Wu, whose story about keeping...

Valuable, lasting advice

Literal: Gold and jade good words

Sound advice likened to gold (金) and jade (玉), the two materials Chinese tradition treats as both precious and enduring. Good words (良言) of this kind are not merely correct but worth keeping. 金石良言 is an equally established variant, substituting stone for jade — both forms are current, and neither is...