10 Chinese Idioms About Respecting Elders & Aging for Double Ninth Festival

Vigor despite age

Literal: Old should become strong

Ma Yuan, the Han general who kept taking commands into his sixties, was reported in the History of the Later Han to have said that a man of purpose should be firmer for being poor and stronger (壮) for being old (老) — 穷当益坚，老当益壮. He died on campaign in his sixties, which the phrase's users generally k...

Intergenerational harmony

Literal: Respect the old, love the young

Respect (尊) the old (老), cherish (爱) the young (幼). The four characters are a modern compression, but the thought is Mencius at his most quoted — treat your own elders as elders and extend it to the elders of others, treat your own young as young and extend it to the young of others — which makes th...

Experience brings wisdom

Literal: Old horse knows way

Returning from a campaign against Guzhu, the army of Duke Huan of Qi lost the road, and Guan Zhong proposed releasing the old horses (老马) and following them: they had walked the route before and would know the way (识途). They did, and the army got home. The Han Feizi tells it. What makes it a story r...

Excellence develops with time

Literal: A great vessel is completed late

This is from the Laozi: 大方无隅，大器晚成 — the greatest square has no corners, the greatest vessel (大器) is completed (成) late (晚). The line sits in a series about great things escaping ordinary measure, so lateness here is a property of scale rather than a delay. A later anecdote applies it to a man dismis...

Grow old together; lifelong partnership

Literal: White heads together in old age

White (白) heads (头) reaching old age (老) side by side (偕). The Book of Songs supplies the wish — 及尔偕老, to grow old with you — and the white hair was added later to give it a picture. It is a blessing rather than a description: nobody says it about a marriage in progress. It is said at weddings and a...

Regain vitality

Literal: Return to youth

The phrase belongs to Daoist longevity literature, where reversing (返) age (老) and returning (还) to childhood (童) was not a figure of speech but the stated aim of a practice — breath work, diet, alchemy, the whole apparatus of internal cultivation. Nobody uses it literally now. What survives is the ...

Respected elder

Literal: High virtue, great respect

Virtue (德) high (高) and standing (望) weighty (重). 望 is the key character — not what a person is but how they are regarded, the reputation that has accumulated around them — so the phrase claims both the substance and the recognition, and it is not usable of someone admirable whom nobody has heard of...

Enduring good reputation

Literal: Fragrance flows for a hundred generations

Huan Wen, who commanded the armies of Eastern Jin and considered taking the throne, is recorded speaking as he lay, then sitting abruptly up: a man unable to let his fragrance (芳) flow (流) down a hundred (百) generations (世) should at least leave a stench for ten thousand years. The pairing 流芳百世 and ...

Deeply entrenched and difficult to change

Literal: Roots deep stem firm

This comes from the Laozi, on deep roots and a firm base as the way of long life — 深根固柢. A plant whose roots run deep (根深) and whose stem is firmly set (蒂固) is not easily pulled up. Applied to habits and institutions the image is neutral in the original and unflattering now: what is hard to uproot i...

Youthful potential

Literal: The later-born are to be held in awe

Confucius said that those born later (后生) are to be held in awe (可畏) — how do we know that the ones coming will not equal the present? The second half of the passage is usually left out and is worth having: if a man reaches forty or fifty and has still not been heard of, then he is not worth fearing...