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For a demon's illness, a fairy's medicine — extraordinary ailments summon extraordinary cures.
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
For a demon's illness, a fairy's medicine — extraordinary ailments summon extraordinary cures.
Sickness enters by the mouth; calamity exits by it — one gate for both directions of ruin.
to fool oneself, to bury one's head in the sand
Leaving the ball to kick the man — abandoning the issue to attack the person.
(phrase) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bỏ, mẹ.
to turn a deaf ear
Discard it and grieve; keep it and suffer — the dilemma of what can neither stay nor go.
Utter insolent rot — barefaced, uncultured nonsense.
Sea-drift gathered into one house — strangers washed together until they're family.
Minding the baby excuses the rice-milling, and the reverse — one back cannot carry two jobs at once.
the same tired old trick; the same trite trope
Netting wind and grabbing shadows — chasing what no hand can close on.
Rake the duckweed and find the vermin — inspect anything closely and out crawl its faults.
Scratching soil and picking grass — subsistence at the fingernail level.
One bowl fewer, a cooler face — eat a little less and keep your dignity intact.
Tease too far and it turns true — the joke that crossed into fact.
The old rogue caught in a berry-snare — a lifetime of cunning undone by the simplest trap.
Belly tells gut — to say something to oneself, keeping the thought private.
Empty belly, frozen back — want attacking from inside and out.
The Buddha of your own pagoda works no miracles — the familiar is never revered; experts are strangers at home.
familiarity breeds contempt
No hen dares peck the Buddha on his altar — station protects; who strikes at the enthroned?
singer-songwriter
Oranges of Phù Tải, lychees of Thúy Lâm — the produce map of Hải Dương pride.
helmet camera
First watch not yet lain down, fifth watch already risen — sleep squeezed between two darknesses.
No bird at the plowing, flocks at the ripening — helpers appear at harvest, never at labor.
Flying high and running far — talents with reach; free to soar wherever ability carries.
Gao Pian's spell roused too soon — a scheme sprung before it ripened, doomed by its own haste.
to be long gone and nowhere to be found, especially after committing a crime
Rich offerings make easy petitions — generous gifts open official ears.
Above every master stands a master — let no one boast; higher skill always exists.
A high mound keeps the grave warm — ancestors well honored shelter their descendants long.
Rubber-plantation roads: easy to walk in, hard to walk out — men leave their health in the latex rows — the colonial plantation's epitaph.
The high birds gone, the fine bow is shelved — servants discarded the moment the need ends.
upland; highland
initialism of các cơ quan (“agencies”)
Elephant's head, mousetail ending — the grand start dwindling to its little finish.
An old father and a small child — care's hardest overlap: age at one end, infancy at the other.
The father a dolt, the uncle sharp — no household is issued fools throughout.
Owl parents, fairy child — a splendid child of unpromising stock.
Rich parents, an easy child; poor parents, a child of hardship — charcoal on the mountain at dawn, crab-holes on the shore at dusk.
Parents make the child; heaven and earth make its temperament — the disposition arrives from a different workshop.
parents may be the ones who birth their children, but it's heaven who gives them their personality
Like father, like son.
Begetting is less than rearing — the mother who raises outranks the blood that made.
Father begets, mother nurtures — the division of the first debt.
The father eats salty, the child grows thirsty — one generation's excesses billed to the next.
To demand or run a fact-check on someone's claim — borrowed from football's VAR video review — especially calling out inflated charity donations or lifestyle flexes with receipts.
to separate two lovers
A tailorbird entering the forest — the small specialist lost in the big wild.
one should never forget about one's ancestry
A bridge bird at a wayside inn — perched a moment, gone the next; a life with no fixed roost.
The wise bird shuns snare and trap; the wise person shuns the reckless — self-preservation is the first wisdom.
A wise bird doesn't waste its call; a wise person speaks gently and is heard — soft speech is the mark of sense.
A bird in a cage, a fish in a bowl — comfort without freedom; a pampered captivity.
The timid bird lives longest — mocked as cowardice, practiced as longevity.
The bird once out of the cage — gone without a backward glance, past all recall.
Close to the English saying: “once bitten, twice shy.”.
Who could count the feathers of the sky's birds — the unaccountable, in one line.