The top idioms of the year
There were a lot of Chinese idioms that came out of 2022. Here’s a review of some of the best ones used to describe major events that occurred over the past year, but one four-character phrase took the cake.
This year, the Phrase of the Week column has tracked and explained a slew of language trends on major events happening in China.
A large chunk of the phrases that have been featured each week are Chinese idioms, or chéngyǔ 成语. Chengyu are unique to the Chinese language, and are widely used in China as a means of expression. Many of them have existed for thousands of years, rooted deep in the country’s past, while others come from modern literature or even China’s internet.
They have been used to describe all the major events that have hit China over the past 12 months. So, to round out the year, we have picked through our archives to bring you our favorite idiom of 2022.
Business ups and downs
Although Chinese companies and entrepreneurs have had a particularly rough year, the toughest ones have prevailed. The return of China’s top male livestreamer, Austin Li (李佳琦 Lǐ Jiāqí), was greeted with an expression that evoked the romance of Chinese wǔxiá (武侠) literature: making a comeback (重出江湖 chóngchū jiānghú).
Meanwhile, the founder of New Oriental, Yú Mǐnhóng 俞敏洪, also known as one of China’s unluckiest entrepreneurs in 2022, made a miraculous comeback after a pivot into livestream ecommerce. We explained his return with an idiom originating from Cantonese: a salted fish flips over (咸鱼翻身 xián yú fān shēn), translated into English as “back from the dead.”
Other companies were not so successful. Suffer a crushing defeat (折戟沉沙 zhé jǐ chén shā) was how China’s tech firms were described as they laid off thousands of employees. That idiom literally means “broken halberds sinking in the sand,” which comes from the Tang-dynasty poem “Red Cliff” (赤壁 chì bì), by Dù Mù 杜牧. Finding a broken centuries-old halberd buried in the sand, Du recalls the famous Battle of Red Cliff, the largest naval battle in human history, at the fall of the Han dynasty.
Scandals among the stars
In China’s entertainment world, two online influencers accused each other of squeezing farmers’ margins, or low grain prices that hurt farmers (谷贱伤农 gǔ jiàn shāng nóng). This idiom is from the Book of Han (汉书 hàn shū), a history of the Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 B.C.
Meanwhile, the authorities followed the vine to find the melon (顺藤摸瓜 shùnténg mōguā) to arrest actor Lǐ Yìfēng 李易峰 for soliciting prostitutes. A more recent addition to the idiomatic dictionary, this expression first appeared in a People’s Daily article in 1982.
A political storm
Geopolitics was also a source of colorful idiomatic tales that drew from China’s historical battles. The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of being a thief crying “stop the thief” (贼喊捉贼 zéi hǎn zhuō zéi) following a visit to Angola by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, during which she warned against using equipment made by Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.
Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 suggested those who play with fire will perish by it (玩火自焚 wán huǒ zì fén) as tensions ratched up in the Taiwan Strait and between the U.S. and China. This idiom has its roots in the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history (770–476 B.C.), credited to philosopher Zuǒ Qiūmíng 左丘明 from his ancient historical account Commentary of Zuo (左传 zuò zhuàn).
Across the pond towards Europe, a Chinese scholar used an eight-character idiom to suggest that Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine will backfire: Kill 1,000 enemy soldiers but lose 800 (杀敌一千，自损八百 shā dí yī qiān, zì sǔn bā bǎi). This expression is from Sun Tzu’s Art of War (孙子兵法 sūnzǐ bīngfǎ), a collection of military strategies written during China’s Spring and Autumn period around 500 B.C. One English translation of it is a “Pyrrhic victory,” which coincidentally dates back to a similar time, from the Battle of Asculum in 279 B.C., when the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus triumphed against the Romans but lost most of his army in the process.
A country under COVID zero
China’s 2022 has been dominated by the pandemic. Snap lockdowns, poor management, and food shortages drove many residents to turn to idioms to describe the virus’s effect on people’s lives, the economy, and how China has become largely isolated from the rest of the world.
The dystopian lockdown of Shanghai drew backlash after local authorities brought down a heavy-handed punishment on a bakery that served bread to hungry citizens. Many recalled an idiom about revenge: a time to settle old scores (秋后算账 qiū hòu suànzhàng), which first appeared in the 1980 General’s Chant (将军吟 jiāng jūn yín) by the novelist Mò Yīngfēng 莫应丰.
Profiteering at a time of national crisis (发国难财 fā guónàn cái) is how China’s COVID testing companies came under fire for profiteering while delivering thousands of false test results in many Chinese cities. Other companies simply made pots of cash (盆满钵满 pén mǎn bō mǎn), an idiom in Cantonese, which is how Andon Health, a producer of COVID at-home test kits, was described when it published its quarterly results in April.
China’s creative internet users also invented a new idiom to cope with the first major wave of COVID to hit the country after the COVID-zero policy was dropped. A peachy pandemic escape (桃过一劫 táoguò yī jié) became a new expression adapted from the original idiom, saved by the bell or a lucky escape (逃过一劫 táoguò yī jié). The character for peach (桃 táo) replaces the word for escape (逃 táo), as they are both pronounced the same way.
Voting with their feet (用脚投票 yòng jiǎo tóupiào) was how many people described the great escape of Foxconn workers from zero-COVID restrictions in Zhengzhou. It’s a borrowed idiom originally coined by the American economist Charles Tiebout in 1956: The Tiebout hypothesis explains how people decide on where to live based on how governments do in providing public services.
In December, young protesters across China’s cities also voted with their feet, perhaps leading to, or at least accelerating, Beijing’s reversal of its COVID-zero policy. And with that change, China’s tourists are ready to vote with their feet, as a huge wave of outbound travel looms in the New Year.
As an idiom, voting with their feet is not a beauty of China’s past. It’s also technically not an idiom in the purest sense, and it’s not even originally from Chinese. But this four-character phrase has certainly captured the mood in China in 2022, earning it our title as the idiom of the year.
