quen thói hành hung
Practiced in strong-arming — violence worn smooth by habit.
All languages English Tiếng Việt
Where will you be? Anywhere Hà Nội & the NorthHuế / Đà Nẵng & the CenterSài Gòn & the SouthOnline slang Bắc ↔ Nam words
Practiced in strong-arming — violence worn smooth by habit.
Luring orioles and beckoning swallows — the seducer's art of coaxing women.
Coaxing the wind and beckoning clouds — luring someone into an affair.
Resolved to fight, resolved to win — the fighting slogan of total commitment.
Fixing a sandal in the melon field — innocence in the exact posture of theft.
Straw authority, stone liability — all of power's blame with none of its weight.
The power of life and death — authority absolute enough to spare or destroy at will.
Drumming at the thunder-god's gate — flaunting your noise at the master of noise.
Only after the fault do we see the error; only in age, the follies of youth — hindsight arrives on its own schedule.
Past the mouth, it's ash — pleasure expires at the swallow; the feast's whole glory is one gulp long.
At the very most, only — it goes no further than that.
Past the season, missed the market — beyond the customary age for marrying.
Past mist it turns to rain — a thing pushed past its limit becomes something else altogether.
after three attempts, the chance of the success decreases greatly
When making a mistake, do not be afraid to correct it.
Chu inns and Qin towers — houses of assignation; the lodgings of passing love.
A monarch should not say anything in jest
A rout without orders — troops breaking for home before any command; total disarray.
Military orders stand like mountains — a command once given cannot be moved.
A palm-fan strategist — the adviser whose clever schemes are worth his mo-leaf fan.
friendly fire
friendly fire
a gentleman is no tool
The gentleman embraces all without favoritism; the small man favors his own and embraces none.
The gentleman holds firm in poverty; the small man in poverty helps himself — want is character's examination hall.
The gentleman meets hardship as the beauty meets a thin fate — excellence of either kind is billed for in suffering.
A gentleman can be deceived — but only along the path of reason; his good faith is the opening.
The gentleman toils in mind, the small man in muscle — each rank pays its own coin of labor.
A 'gentleman' of the Chinese-novel sort — little rice, plenty of vegetables — the mock title for genteel poverty.
I give you my word; you have my word
The gentleman completes others' good — never their evil; he builds what envy would tear.
The gentleman eats without seeking plenty, dwells without seeking ease — sufficiency is his whole appetite.
revenge is a dish best served cold
Gentlemen in the fields, small men at court — the age turned upside down, rank and place traded.
The gentleman keeps clear of the kitchen — great matters upstairs, no accounting of morsels below.
The gentleman worries over the way, not over want — poverty of purse never troubled him, poverty of principle does.
A cleared throat wounds the gentleman — to the honorable, the gentlest reproach lands like a blow.
A monarch should not say anything in jest
The gentleman guards his person — prudence as a nobleman's first weapon.
Sweep the house and rubbish appears — inspect anything closely enough and faults surface.
Father's homeland, ancestors' earth — the ground that owns you back.
Prize the refined, not the numerous — an army, or anything, measured in quality over count.
Precious things seek precious owners — treasures circulate toward whoever can afford their keeping.
having to bear the blame for something one did not do
Sweet tangerine and sour lime — each nature keeps its flavor; households mix both.
The crow borrowing peacock feathers — dressing in others' finery to hide what one is.
Pecked by crows, snatched by kites — misfortune queuing up for the same victim.
The crow raising the koel's chick — labor donated to a squatter; the lazy bird's egg hatched by another's warmth.
A crow in peacock's guise — borrowed splendor over a shabby core.
A sex bomb — smoldering physical magnetism.
Sparing desire preserves the body — the old physician's ledger of appetite against years.
Scant harmony, scant friends — the prickly keep an empty visiting-book.
Karma's fruit and fated bonds — good matches and bad lots alike are cause ripened into effect.
Whipping the horse to chase the wind — bolting from a lover without a backward glance.
Short trousers and lead-dark shins — if not Tứ Kỳ, then Gia Lộc — the teasing uniform of the mud-field districts.
Ants swarming rank meat — the stampede toward anything that smells of profit.
A shoal of fish fighting for the feed — a free-for-all over the same scrap.
Clustering in threes, knotting in fives — little knots of people gathering to gossip or scheme.
Ghosts weep and spirits mourn — writing so fine the supernatural grieves; or wickedness so great it appalls them.
The nation takes the people as its root — no populace, no state; the base firm, the country calm.