Throughout Chinese history, a curious collection of idioms passed down through the generations. These four characters long phrases are called 成語 - Chéng Yǔ.

Most of these were fairly straightforward, but some Chengyu have interesting stories: stories that are still alive today in Chinese and Taiwanese classrooms. They are even part of other Chinese-influenced cultures (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese etc).

This blog is an effort to:

  1. Document and explain Chengyu from a western perspective
  2. Tell some fun stories - most of these are pretty amusing and funny to read, since only interesting stories survive the test of time
  3. Improve my writing because my literary skills have been vegetating since college

As a side note - the idioms are presented in Traditional Chinese. They look prettier in my humble opinion.