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炒鱿鱼 chǎo yóu yú

Firstly, let’s probe into the literal meaning. “炒chǎo”，which means stir-frying. “鱿鱼yóu yú”means sleeve-fish. As you see, it’s a dish name. By now you may have a question mark in your brain: how does this dish name matter with firing someone.

It derives from a previous parlance. In the old time of China, employers didn’t offer covering or mattress, so employees had to bring them by themselves. Once they were fired or expelled, they had to roll up their bedclothes. Because being dismissed or fired sounds sharp and acid, people are willing to use rolling up their bedclothes to imply that they are fired. Speaking of “炒鱿鱼 chǎo yóu yú”,if you observe carefully, you can find out every flat filet will gradually roll up into a cylinder. The process is like rolling up the bedclothes a lot, so people begin to use “炒鱿鱼 chǎo yóu yú” this phrase to refer to fire or expel someone.

拔苗助长 bá miáo zhù zhǎng

comes from a fable. The literal meaning for it is pulling out seedlings to help them grow faster.

It’s said that the fable happened in the Spring and Autumn period. A farmer coming from the Song Kingdom went to his field and thought his seedlings were growing too slowly. He excogitated an idea that he could help the seedlings to grow faster by pulling them out, then he began his work and pulled these seedlings out one by one. After he had finished the work, he felt exhausted. However, he was very pleased and proud that all of his seedlings had been grown faster. He went back to show off his “smart practice” on these seedlings to his son. After hearing it, his son felt quite surprised and worried. He ran to the field and found out that all the seedlings had been withered.

This story and idiom tell us that we should follow the rules or combine practice when we do things, otherwise we can not only do no good. Instead, we destroy it or make it worse.

chī huò 吃 货

If you like shopping and you are in China, you might know the word “百货(bǎi huò)”. It can be translated to hundred goods literally, which indicates its real meaning— general merchandise. But currently, you can find there is some interesting words made of 货(huò), such as 吃货(chī huò). As we know 吃(chī) means eat in Chinese, but when we add the货(huò) after it, the new word doesn’t mean eat something but means someone who likes eating, in another word, food-lover!

If some of your friends are addicted to delicious food, you can call them “吃货(chī huò)”. Maybe this cute “nickname” will make your friendship even closer!

门 mén

As everyone knows, the meaning of 门（mén）is door or gate. However, it represents affair(especially for affairs which have negative effect to the society) when it comes after some nouns which are the key points of the incidents. International press circles started to use the word “gate” when state leaders(particularly aims at America) meet political crisis or scandal after the “Watergate Scandal”, and Chinese press circles translate it into门（mén）for similar incidents in recent years. Nowadays, the expression of “××门（mén）” is popular on the internet and the scope of it already expanded to breaking news in other fields.

gāo kǎo 高考

You may have heard about Chinese College Entrance Examination. It is very important for Chinese students and parents. It is looked as a symbol of “Dragon Gate”, which means Chinese people believe that students can realize their life value and become successful through College Entrance Examination. There is a Chinese idiom “lǐ yú tiào lóng mén鲤鱼跳龙门”, which means the carp jumps through the dragon gate and becomes a dragon. It means the common people can become successful or extraordinary through a sudden special approach. “gāo kǎo高考” is regarded as the sudden special approach. That’s why Chinese students spent the whole twelve years focusing on studying book knowledge without caring about the real society. Especially when it comes to the last year, the competition is very cruel and fierce. It’s called a war without smoke of gunpowder. College Entrance Examination is on June 7th and June 8th every year and it’s now entering the count down stage. Every Chinese high school senior is bearing the large pressure and experiencing a psychological battle. Let’s wish them good luck.

qín liú ɡǎn 禽 流 感

What draws a lot of attention these days in China?

Yes, it’s H7N9 strain of Bird Flu, or Avian Influenza( qín liú ɡǎn, 禽流感).

In the word qín liú ɡǎn(禽 流 感) there are three characters, which mean birds(niǎo lèi, 鸟类) and poultry(jiā qín, 家禽), epidemic(liú xínɡ xìnɡ, 流行性) and cold(ɡǎn mào, 感冒) respectively. With three more cases reported on Monday, China has recorded 24 human cases of H7N9, seven of them fatal. The evidence so far points to poultry and birds as the main vehicle of H7N9 transmission, but the possibility of the virus being transmitted between humans cannot be ruled out. As no prophylactic vaccine which aims at H7N9 has been invented so far, what we can do now to prevent this, is to wash hands frequently, quit drinking unboiled water, have well-cooked egg, poultry and meat, etc.

清明节 qīng míng jié

“清明节 qīng míng jié” is translated as Tomb Sweeping Day. Just as its name implies, the most important event we usually do is sweeping the tomb for honoring the dead people. You may say that it’s just like the western countries’ Halloween. Yeah, there are some similarities. However, we still have something different. Generally, We honor the dead people whom we believe are our ancestors or who are our close relatives. We don’t honor all the spirits of the dead people.

On Tomb Sweeping Day, we come to the front of the tombs of our ancestors or relatives within bringing some wine, food, fruits and lots of paper money. Firstly, we sweep the tomb and add some new earth. Secondly, we set off firecrackers so as to awake the spirits. Then we burn the imitation paper money and things that we want to give to the dead people. We also name the whole Tomb Sweeping activity as “上坟shàng fén”.