倾盖如故

Pronunciation: qīng gài rú gù Literal meaning: Canopies tilt, like old friends

Origin & Usage

倾盖 is what happens when two carriages stop alongside on the road and their canopies tilt toward one another — the drivers have paused to talk. Zou Yang, writing from prison, set it against its opposite: 白头如新，倾盖如故, some go grey together and remain strangers, others tilt their canopies once and are old (故) friends as though (如) they always had been. The pairing is the argument, and it says that the length of an acquaintance predicts nothing about its depth. What it marks is an immediate and unexpected affinity between people who have just met.

Examples

English: "The two scientists immediately recognized their shared passion for research"

Chinese: 两位科学家立即认识到他们对研究的共同热情