33 entries · 2 categories
Idioms and curated reading paths. Entries grouped to be read together.
读径
dú jìng
Reading Paths
12 entries
Curated reading paths through thematic clusters.
中医Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Reading PathA guided walk through the philosophy, practice, and vocabulary of Chinese medicine: from yin-yang and qi to acupuncture, herbology, and the five phases.
六大茶类The Six Teas: A Reading PathA guided tour through the six classes of Chinese tea, plus the character, the utensils, and the gongfu ceremony.
哲学Chinese Philosophy: A Reading PathA guided walk through the great schools of Chinese thought: from Confucius and Laozi to the Neo-Confucian synthesis and the living debate between order and spontaneity.
四大发明与技术Invention and Technology: A Reading PathChinese technological innovation was not a story of lone inventors. It was systematic accumulation within state institutions and artisan guilds over centuries, carried by people whose names the record does not preserve.
地理与语言Geography and Language: A Reading PathThe rivers shaped the civilization; geography fractured the language; one writing system held it together.
宗教地图The Religious Map: A Reading PathChinese religiosity doesn't fit Western categories. Most people practice elements of Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, folk religion, and ancestor veneration simultaneously: a map of how these traditions relate.
文学路径Literary China: A Reading PathChinese literature is not a sequence of styles that replaced each other. It is an accumulation. This path follows the layering forward in time.
朝代The Dynasties: A Reading Path Through Chinese HistoryA guided walk through four thousand years of Chinese dynasties, from the three founding houses to the modern ruptures that ended imperial rule.
汉字The Writing System: A Reading PathA guided walk through Chinese characters: from oracle bone to modern glyph, from radical to compound, from stroke to calligraphy.
汉语学习路Learning Chinese: A Reading PathA staged reading path from tones and sounds through characters, grammar, and a first encounter with classical Chinese.
节日The Festival Calendar: A Reading PathA guided walk through the Chinese year: the lunar calendar, the solar terms, and the great festivals that mark the turning of time.
道德与伦理Morality and Ethics: A Reading PathChinese ethics is not a checklist of personal virtues. It is a description of how one should relate to specific others, and what happens when those relationships are tested.
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成语
chéngyǔ
Chengyu
21 entries
Four-character idioms. Compressed wisdom from classical texts.
一毛不拔Not Give Even a HairRefuse to give even a single hair from your body. Mencius's phrase for the Yangist philosophy of radical self-preservation, and the word for a miser that it became.
万丈高楼平地起A tower ten thousand zhang tall rises from flat groundThe folk proverb that answers impatience: every immeasurable height begins on ordinary earth.
三人成虎three people make a tigerA minister warns his king: if three people all claim there is a tiger in the marketplace, even the skeptical will believe it. The Zhanguo Ce parable of rumor that outlasts the warning against it.
与时俱进to advance together with the timesA classical phrase that became a political slogan in 2001, used to justify the Communist Party accommodating private enterprise, and criticized for justifying whatever the party currently does.
东施效颦to imitate blindly without understanding, and make things worseA homely woman copies Xi Shi's famous frown and clears the street: Zhuangzi's parable about form without essence.
事与愿违things go contrary to ones wishesTraced to Ruan Ji of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove: a literary formulation of the gap between intention and outcome, resigned rather than accusatory, with no blame assigned.
亡羊补牢mend the sheep pen after the sheep is lostFrom the Zhanguo Ce: a man loses sheep through a hole in his pen and is told he is too late to repair it. A neighbor corrects the fatalist: remediation after a loss is not too late, it is exactly right.
刻舟求剑Carving the Boat to Find the SwordHe marked the boat where his sword fell into the river. When the boat reached the shore, he dived where the mark was.
叶公好龙Lord Ye Loves DragonsHe decorated his palace with dragons, until a real one appeared. The idiom for loving what you only love in the abstract.
君子不器the exemplary person is not a vesselConfucius says the junzi is not a utensil: not defined by function, not limited to one use. The Analects' argument against reducing a person to their usefulness.
塞翁失马The Old Man at the Frontier Loses His HorseHis horse ran off. His neighbours grieved. He shrugged. The Daoist parable that became China's word for the unknowability of fortune.
守株待兔Guarding the Stump, Waiting for RabbitsA rabbit ran headlong into a tree stump. The farmer dropped his plough and watched the stump for the rest of his life.
山清水秀Mountains Clear, Waters LovelyClear mountains, lovely waters. The standard Chinese phrase for a picturesque landscape: four characters that compress the whole aesthetic vocabulary of natural beauty.
愚公移山The Foolish Old Man Moves the MountainsTwo mountains blocked his door. He and his sons began to move them, one basket at a time. A mocker laughed. He said: when I die my sons will continue; when they die, their sons.
欲速则不达Haste Does Not Bring SuccessSpeed desired, arrival missed: Confucius on why rushing produces the opposite of what you intend.
班门弄斧Showing Off Before the MasterBrandishing an axe at Lu Ban's door: the idiom for presuming to display skill before someone who has mastered it.
画蛇添足Drawing Legs on a SnakeHe finished first, so he kept drawing, and lost the prize. The idiom for ruining a good thing by overdoing it.
矛盾ContradictionThe spear that can pierce anything meets the shield that can stop anything: the story behind China's word for contradiction.
误入歧途To Stray onto the Wrong RoadThe four-character idiom for taking a wrong turn, whether morally, professionally, or literally. Where 迷途知返 describes the recovery, 误入歧途 describes the moment things went wrong.
迷途知返To Realise You Are Lost and Turn BackFour characters that describe one of the most human experiences: taking a wrong road, recognising it, and finding the way home. The Chinese idiom for course-correction done with dignity.
青出于蓝The Student Surpasses the TeacherIndigo is made from the indigo plant, yet it is bluer than the plant itself. Xunzi's image for the student who surpasses the teacher through sustained effort.
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