Meaning of Chinese Proverbs and Idioms

Chinese proverbs and idioms is basically telling a story of a person, family or person. There are some idioms that tell about a past event such as the phrase ‘cheng men li xue’, which mean that someone admire and respect their teacher. In the Song Dynasty, there was a Chinese Philosopher named Cheng Yi, he lived with his brother in the town of Luoyang. Cheng Yi had a student named Yangshi, and he lived in a different town. One day, Yanshi decided to go visit his teacher on a heavily storm day. When he arrived at his teacher Cheng Yi house, he saw that his teacher Cheng is still asleep. So, Yangshi thought for a moment, if he whether go inside or stay out because he really respect his teacher and dont want to wake up his teacher. Yangshi finally decided to wait outside and stay in the snowy weather until his teacher rise up. When Cheng Yi finally got up from his nap, the snow had already cover Yangshi up. So, the idiom ‘cheng men li xue’ is use to describe someone honor their teacher.

In the chinese idiom, ‘ming luo sun shan’ indicate that a person is failing in their exam or competition. In the Song Dynasty, there was a man who was known as a joker, and his named is Sun Shan. Sun is a student and took an imperial exam with the others competitor. After Sun Shan took his test and wait until he got the results that his named was at the lower part of the list of the people who had passed. When Sun Shan returned home from the imperial test to his house;d then once he got home, he meet his neighbor dad. His neighbor dad want to know if his son had pass to so, he asked Sun. Sun responded that his neighbor son came after him, which Sun named was already at the bootom. After Sun had made a joke out of it, then the term ‘ming luo su...

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...came a scholar.

The idiom ‘ba tu er fei’ mean not to give up something half way. During the Song Dynasty, there was a man named Le Yang, who is married and continue on his education for about a year then give up. Le Yang decided to stop going to school and return to his home. When he arrived at his home, he first saw his wife and she asked him that why did he return for; then he respond that because he cares and need to get contact with her. Le’s wife picked up the cloth that she was working on and cut it into half . She explained to Le that stopping his education is like stopping half way like cutting the cloth. Le thought about it, and return to continue his education but, this time he did not return for about seven to eight years when he succeeds. After this had past, ‘ba tu er fei’ was known as the idiom meaning to not give up half way until you finish it.