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Clam and snipe locked fast, the fisherman profits — the full-length telling of the two rivals and the third who wins.
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Clam and snipe locked fast, the fisherman profits — the full-length telling of the two rivals and the third who wins.
How are you?
What do you do for work?
What do you do for a living?
Where do you work?
Sorry? What did you say?
Where do you live?
Do you work or study?
Are you married or single?
Where are you from?
When the clam and the snipe grapple, the fisherman profits — two rivals locked in struggle only hand the prize to a third.
Wrestling tigers barehanded and wading great rivers — courage with the planning left out.
Bold-mouthed — daring to say straight out what others swallow.
Quick to flare, quick to fade — fortunes that bloom overnight wither by morning.
Gold rolls and stone steles — achievement carved into the permanent record.
Hauling firewood to fight the fire — a remedy that feeds the disease.
Not lame at seventy? Don't boast of soundness yet — infirmity keeps its own calendar.
Seventy still learns from seventy-one — there is no age past apprenticeship.
to buzz someone in
Not your affair? Don't put your head in — uninvolved is a position worth keeping.
Scruples be damned — pursuing the goal by any device whatever.
Out of touch with human feeling — conduct by private code, deaf to how people are.
Immovable and unshifting — fixed once and for all, never to change.
Don't weigh heroes by win and loss — battle luck is no measure of the man.
Resent not heaven, blame not others — peace begins at accepting one's lot.
Unashamed to ask those below — the wise take instruction wherever it lives.
Thudding along without restraint — eating, drinking and doing exactly as appetite dictates.
poor people are going to do what they must to get by
The gourd climbs, and the squash vine climbs after — imitation scaling the same trellis.
love thy neighbor as thyself
Seven times afloat, three times under — a fate tossed like a rice-cake in the pot; Hồ Xuân Hương's phrase for a woman's lot.
A tongue-twisting lái chain — "reveal the secret that got lost" — said for fun or to tease someone who just spilled something.
Snapping back like shrimp on a griddle — quick, crackling retorts to everything.
Pot on the fire, waiting for rice — preparation outrunning supply.
Set a ladder to the old moon and ask: is a girl's fate truly rain scattered mid-sky — landing in a clear well if lucky, in hardship if not.
To shoot the wild goose at the cloud's edge — to triumph brilliantly in a difficult examination.
Fire and miss, and you owe the bullet — failed attempts still bill their ammunition.
No good at mousing, expert at fouling the kitchen — useless where needed, busy where not.
monkey see, monkey do
Catching the loach in the water-jar — the sure thing, staged in a container.
Grabbing the loach by the tail — the hold that guarantees escape.
If you cannot make up your mind which of two things you should do, you are liable to get yourself into difficulties by doing neither.
Catching frogs into a saucer — no sooner in than out; custody that cannot hold.
Grabbing the eel by the tail — the slipperiest hold on a slippery thing.
Plucking one man's beard to plant on another's chin — swapping stories between owners until truth is upside down.
Seize the man with hair; nobody grabs the shaven head — claims attach to those with something to hold.
Friendship rests on good faith — without trust there is no friend to speak of.
reluctantly agree
missing; whereabouts unknown; complete radio silent
Shutting the door to chase out the thief — a cure that locks the disease inside.
to cut off a country from the outside world
Traditional tone placement spelling of bế quan toả cảng.
To gang up on someone as a group; a mob beating (related to "đánh hội đồng").
When those above keep no order, those below make wind and rain — misrule breeds misconduct downward.
Seas run shallow and mountains wear down — time changes all things; also an image for a vow meant to outlast them.
A plan or deal that falls through; to flake on an arrangement (kèo = a bet or plan).
Illness comes in via the mouth because of food and trouble goes out via the mouth because of words; carefulness required in diet and speech
When misery bottoms out, prosperity turns in — the wheel's lowest point is where it rises.
is rich in this is poor in that; (figurative) one cannot have it both ways
to have high or low blood pressure