ăn đã vậy, múa gậy làm sao
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
When one cannot even fulfill basic needs, how can they afford luxuries?
Literally: eat like that, dance with stick how
Examples
Anh ấy ăn đã vậy, múa gậy làm sao mà mua được nhà?He can barely make ends meet, how can he afford to buy a house?
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Discovered via Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918; public domain, via vi.wikisource); retrieved 2026-08-01. Source: source ↗ Attested in Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-01; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “ăn đã vậy, múa gậy làm sao” mean?
When one cannot even fulfill basic needs, how can they afford luxuries? Literally: eat like that, dance with stick how
Is “ăn đã vậy, múa gậy làm sao” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.