12 Chinese Idioms for Each Zodiac Animal - Universal CNY Blessings

Wait passively for luck

Literal: Guard the stump, wait for a rabbit

This Warring States period parable tells of a farmer who, after seeing a rabbit die by running into a tree stump (株), waited (待) endlessly for more rabbits (兔) at the same spot. His guard (守) of the stump became a classic example of misguided persistence and inflexible thinking. The story appeared i...

Borrow authority to intimidate

Literal: Fox uses tiger's power

A tiger caught a fox, and the fox said heaven had made it lord of the beasts, so eating it would be defying heaven — walk behind me and see whether anything dares stand its ground. The tiger followed, the animals fled, and the tiger concluded the fox had been telling the truth. The Strategies of the...

Stand out from crowd

Literal: Crane stands among chickens

This one comes from the Shishuo Xinyu, on Ji Shao, of whom an onlooker said that seeing him in a crowd was like seeing a crane (鹤) standing (立) among chickens (鸡群). The remark was reported to his father's friend, who replied that the onlooker had never seen the father. The distinction it names is be...

Youthful vigor despite old age

Literal: Dragon-horse spirit

The 龙马 is a single creature, not two: the dragon-horse that rose from the Yellow River bearing the diagram on its back, in the legend of how the trigrams were devised. So the phrase claims the vitality (精神) of a mythical beast rather than combining a dragon and a horse. It is used almost exclusively...

Persist despite impossibility

Literal: Bird fills sea with pebbles

This poignant idiom comes from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Nüwa (女娃), the young daughter of Yandi the Flame Emperor, drowned in the Eastern Sea, and her spirit became a bird called Jingwei (精卫) that carried twigs and pebbles from the western mountains to drop into the water, determined to fil...

Achieve immediate success

Literal: Success upon the horse's arrival

The horse (马) arrives (到) and the thing succeeds (成功). It belongs to Yuan drama, where a general's mount reaching the field is the moment the outcome is settled, and the compression is the point: no campaign, no struggle, just arrival and result. Chinese uses it almost entirely as a wish rather than...

Fierce competition between equals

Literal: Two tigers fight

Bian Zhuangzi meant to kill two tigers that were fighting over an ox, and was told to wait: the big one will be hurt and the small one killed, and he would then take two tigers at the cost of one strike. He waited, and did. The Records of the Grand Historian tells it in an argument about letting two...

Give out until nothing is left

Literal: Spring silkworm until death

This image comes from Li Shangyin's Untitled poem of the Tang dynasty: 春蚕到死丝方尽，蜡炬成灰泪始干 — the spring (春) silkworm (蚕) spins until death (死) before its thread is done, and the candle's tears dry only when it has burned to ash. The couplet is a love poem, and the silkworm is a figure for longing that d...

Volunteer oneself confidently

Literal: Mao Sui recommends himself

Zhao needed an alliance with Chu and the Lord of Pingyuan could find only nineteen suitable men among his retainers. Mao Sui (毛遂) put himself (自) forward (荐). Asked how long he had been in the household and told three years, the lord said that a man of ability is like an awl in a bag — the point sho...

Practice with determination

Literal: Hear the rooster, rise and drill the sword

Zu Ti and Liu Kun shared a bed as junior officials and shared an ambition to see the north recovered. The History of the Jin records that in the middle of the night Zu Ti heard (闻) a cock (鸡) crowing out of hours — an omen ordinarily counted unlucky — kicked Liu Kun awake and said this is not an evi...

Run out of tricks

Literal: Donkey's tricks exhausted

Liu Zongyuan's fable has no donkeys in Guizhou (黔) until a meddler ships one in and turns it loose on a hillside. A tiger sees this huge thing, takes it for a god, and watches from cover. The donkey (驴) brays; the tiger bolts. Nothing happens, so the tiger edges closer, brushes against it, provokes ...

Deliberately distort truth as power display

Literal: Point deer call horse

Zhao Gao, holding the Qin court after the First Emperor's death, brought a deer (鹿) before the young emperor and, pointing (指) at it, called it (为) a horse (马). The emperor laughed; the officials divided. Those who said deer, Zhao Gao later had killed. The Records of the Grand Historian tells it, an...