8 Funny Chinese Idioms with Hilarious Literal Meanings

Exactly identical

Literal: One mold one appearance

One (一) mould (模) and one (一) appearance (样) — two castings taken from the same form, which in bronze work means they are not merely similar but the same object twice. Note the reading: 模 is mú here, not mó, and learners who know it only from 模型 tend to get it wrong. The phrase is neutral about whet...

Shirk effort by preference

Literal: Love ease hate work

To love (好) ease (逸) and hate (恶) toil (劳). The two verbs are the point: this is not laziness as a failing of will but as a preference, something the phrase presents as the ordinary human default rather than a vice peculiar to the person being described. That makes it a diagnosis more than an insult...

Advantage from close connections

Literal: Pavilion close to water

Su Lin, a minor officer under Fan Zhongyan, was passed over while Fan promoted others around him, and presented a couplet instead of a complaint: 近水楼台先得月，向阳花木易为春 — the tower (楼台) nearest (近) the water (水) gets the moon first, and flowers facing the sun come to spring early. Fan took the point and pr...

Accept all with open mind

Literal: Sea accepts hundred rivers

The sea (海) takes in (纳) a hundred (百) rivers (川) and is still the sea — that is the whole argument, and it is why the image is the sea and not a lake. The line is Lin Zexu's, the first half of a couplet normally quoted whole: 海纳百川，有容乃大；壁立千仞，无欲则刚 — the sea admits a hundred rivers, and capacity is wh...

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 ...

Makes no sense

Literal: Cannot name its wonder

Something whose strangeness (妙) cannot (莫) be named (名). 妙 is the trap for learners: in Daoist writing it is the subtle and the marvellous, but the tone here is exasperated rather than reverent, and the speaker is not contemplating a mystery so much as failing to make sense of something absurd. Late...

Love extends to all connections

Literal: Love house and its crow

Loving (爱) a house (屋) and extending that (及) even to the crows (乌) on its roof. The formulation comes from an early gloss on the Zhou conquest — he who loves a man loves even the crows on his roof — and the crow is chosen because it is the least lovable bird available, which is the entire force of ...

Keep secrets well

Literal: Guard mouth like bottle

To guard (守) the mouth (口) like (如) a stoppered jar (瓶). Zhu Xi paired it with a second clause that is usually quoted alongside — 守口如瓶，防意如城, guard the mouth like a jar and garrison the intentions like a walled city — which puts silence and self-command on the same footing. The image is of a vessel t...