10 Chinese Idioms for Peace & Harmony in the New Year

Peace everywhere; universal harmony

Literal: Four seas rising in peace

The four seas (四海) — classical Chinese for everywhere, the world being bounded by them — rising into (升) peace (平). 升平 is a set term for an era in good order, and the phrase asserts that the order holds not merely at the centre but out to the edges. That reach is the whole content. It belongs to the...

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...

National peace and public security

Literal: Country peaceful, people safe

The state (国) in right order (泰) and the people (民) secure (安). 泰 is the Yijing hexagram of things standing in proper relation, heaven and earth in communication, so the first half claims order rather than mere quiet. The two halves are offered as a single outcome and not as a trade, which is the ar...

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...

Completely safe and unharmed through danger

Literal: Peaceful without illness

The Strategies of the Warring States has the Queen Dowager of Zhao receive an envoy from Qi and, before she has broken the seal on his letter, ask him three questions: is the harvest without trouble (无恙), are the people without trouble, is your king without trouble. The envoy takes offence at the or...

Balance excellence with social harmony

Literal: Respect work enjoy community

The Record of Learning in the Book of Rites lays out what a student should be examined on at each stage: after three years, whether he takes his studies seriously (敬业) and gets on with his fellows (乐群). The pairing is the point — competence and sociability are assessed together, and neither substitu...

Everything in right place

Literal: Each finds its place

Each (各) obtaining (得) its (其) proper place (所). The Book of Changes uses it of a market where everyone has exchanged what they came to exchange and gone home satisfied. That is the sense: not equality but fit, with the test being that nothing is left misplaced. Appointments, seating plans, settleme...

Feel at ease with a clear conscience

Literal: Heart at peace, reason satisfied

The heart (心) at rest (安) because the reasoning (理) holds up (得). The two halves stand in a stated relation: the calm is not a temperament but a consequence, and it is available only to somebody who has actually checked. That is what makes the phrase useful, and also what makes it available for sarc...

Gentle, nurturing influence

Literal: Spring wind and nurturing rain

This is from the Mencius, which counts among a teacher's modes the one who transforms a student as a timely rain does — the spring wind (春风) and the rain that transforms (化雨). Nothing is forced; the growth is the student's own, and the teacher supplies the conditions. It is reserved for education ra...