{"id":12141,"date":"2019-11-20T05:10:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T05:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-words-phrases\/finding-a-lost-sword-ke-zhou-qiu-jian\/"},"modified":"2019-11-20T05:10:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T05:10:56","slug":"finding-a-lost-sword-ke-zhou-qiu-jian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/finding-a-lost-sword-ke-zhou-qiu-jian\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding a Lost Sword \u523b\u821f\u6c42\u5251"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Chinese idiom \u523b\u821f\u6c42\u5251 (ke4 zhou1 qiu2 jian4) literally means finding a lost sword by marking the gunwale of a moving boat.<\/p>\n<p>  The story behind this saying is a<em><\/em>bout a man in the State of Chu who was crossing a river in a boat. His sword accidentally slipped from its sheath into the water. The man loved the sword and wanted to get it back. Suddenly having a brain wave, he took a small knife from his pocket and made a mark on the side of the boat (the gunwale) wher he had dropped the sword. He said to his puzzled companions,<\/p>\n<p>  I have made a mark here to remind me wher my sword fell into the water. Later on I will be able to retrieve my sword by looking at the location of the mark.<\/p>\n<p>  When the boat eventually docked at the other side of the river, the man jumped quickly into the river to retrieve his lost sword. Of course this was a waste of time (\u52b3\u6c11\u4f24\u8d22 lao2 ming2 shang1 cai2) &#8211; rather stupidly, he had not realised that while the boat was moving the lost sword was not.<\/p>\n<p>  The moral behind the story is that it is im<em><\/em>portant to take into co<em><\/em>nsideration changes in the circumstances and to adapt appropriately to those changes. This is a key co<em><\/em>ncept for the Chinese and every school pupil in China has it drilled into them from an early age.<\/p>\n<p>  I have been unable to think of an equivalent English ex<em><\/em>pression for this Chinese idiom. Please feel free to co<em><\/em>ntact us if you think you know an English idiom or proverb that expresses a similar sentiment to \u523b\u821f\u6c42\u5251 (ke4 zhou1 qiu2 jian4).<br type=\"_moz\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-970666703\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1889418300638825\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1889418300638825\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7273022922\" \ndata-ad-layout-key=\"-gw-3+1f-3d+2z\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese idiom \u523b\u821f\u6c42\u5251 (ke4 zhou1 qiu2 jian4) literally means finding a lost sword by marking the gunwale of a<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-12141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-words-phrases","tag-chinese-idiom"],"views":329,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}