10 Chinese Idioms About Appearances vs Reality

Exist in name only

Literal: Name exists reality gone

The name (名) survives (存), the substance (实) has died (亡). The 名/实 pair is one of the oldest problems in Chinese thought — whether words still fit the things they were assigned to — and this phrase is its practical form. What it describes is not fraud but decay: the institution was real once, the ti...

Empty promises satisfy nothing

Literal: Draw cakes to alleviate hunger

Emperor Ming of Wei, telling Lu Yu how to pick men for office, said not to choose by reputation: a reputation is like a cake drawn on the ground, and you cannot eat it. The Records of the Three Kingdoms preserves the order, and the four-character form drew (画) the cake (饼) instead. Drawing the cake ...

Vastly different; poles apart

Literal: As far apart as the path outside and the courtyard within

The Zhuangzi's wording is 大有径庭 — there is a great deal of 径庭 about it — where 径 is the footpath outside a door and 庭 the courtyard within, the gap between them standing for the distance between what was said and ordinary sense. The modern form puts 相 in, making it mutual. What the phrase asserts is ...

Be consistent inside and out

Literal: Outside and inside as one

The outside (表) and the inside (里) as (如) one (一). 表 and 里 are the two faces of a garment, the shown and the lining, so the metaphor is not about honesty in speech but about there being a single thing where one might have expected two. That is why it is used of a person's whole conduct rather than o...

Living up to one's name or reputation

Literal: Name matches reality

The name (名) matching (副) the reality (实). Cao Cao uses the equivalent phrase in a letter praising Wang Xiu, saying his repute and his substance corresponded and that he far surpassed ordinary men. Behind it lies the older Confucian preoccupation with 正名, the rectification of names, on the argument ...

Lifelike; vividly realistic

Literal: Vividly as if alive

栩栩 comes straight out of the Zhuangzi's butterfly dream — 栩栩然蝴蝶也, a butterfly vividly and contentedly itself — and the phrase adds 如生, as though alive. That origin is worth carrying: the point of the dream is that the butterfly did not know it was a man, so the vividness is complete from the inside....

Self-imposed restrictions; limiting oneself

Literal: Drawing ground as prison

Sima Qian, in the letter to Ren An written after his own mutilation, describes what a man of honour will do rather than face the officers: there are those for whom a circle drawn (画) on the ground (地) is a prison (为牢) they will not step out of, and a wooden figure of a jailer one they will not answe...

Cling to the old and outdated; resist progress

Literal: Embrace the incomplete, guard the deficient

Liu Xin, arguing with the court scholars over which versions of the classics should be taught, accused them of clinging (抱) to what was damaged (残) and guarding (守) what was missing (缺), holding to a private fear of being proved wrong instead of a public willingness to follow what is right. The comp...

Refuse to move beyond past methods

Literal: Old steps, self-sealed in

The standard form writes the first character 故, meaning old or former — the old (故) steps (步) one keeps taking, with oneself (自) sealed in (封). It is very often miswritten 固步自封, since 固 means fixed and seems to fit, and the error is common enough in China to be worth knowing about. The image is a pe...

The whole story; causes and effects

Literal: Ridge it comes from, stream it runs to

Both halves are technical terms from geomancy, and they are not the same kind of thing: 龙 is the rise and fall of a mountain range, and the 来龙 is its main peak, the height a site's energy is held to come down from; 脉 is the stream in the valley, and the 去脉 is its main channel, where the water goes. ...