I Should've Known Better | The Chinese Sayings Podcast

The China History Podcast

Laszlo Montgomery

History, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You didn't ask for it. But you're getting it anyway. This week's Chinese Sayings Podcast reaches back all the way to those fateful years following the fall of the Qin Dynasty and the contentious period of conflict between Liu Bang of Han and Xiang Yu of Chu. As these two rivals battle it out, Liu Bang sought advice from one of his advisors on a plan of action. But as we'll see, that plan is blown out of the water by the great hero of the early Han, Zhang Liang. In order to persuade Liu Bang of the folly of this plan, Zhang Liang will 借箸代筹 Jiè Zhù Dài Chóu, borrow chopsticks to illustrate his strategy. And using these chopsticks as a prop to illustrate his point, Zhang Liang blows this advisor's good idea out of the water.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, everyone! L'Asla Montgomery with you once again. This is the Chinese Sains podcast.
0:06.0	As some of you may have noticed, you can now get this program, not only on the Chinese Sains podcast
0:11.2	feed, but also on the China History podcast feed. And what I found out is that despite all my milk
0:17.4	toast efforts at spreading the word about this show, not to mention these Chinese Sains podcast
0:22.8	shows being available since 2017, Fleetwide on Cathay Pacific Airways. Still, this labor of love
0:29.9	has been relegated to a niche inside a well-hidden room that very few seem to know about,
0:35.2	but not anymore. It's moving up in the world, and the CSP is now being made available simultaneously
0:41.3	on the China History podcast feed. Why not? Every single one of these Chinese sayings are rooted in
0:47.6	history that we've already covered to some extent or another in previous CHP episodes?
0:53.3	So give it a shot and see if you like them. They're all quite short, and hey, no one ever said
0:58.3	that learning a new Cheng Yu or Chinese saying was going to hurt anyone. In this time,
1:03.2	we're going to give Jia Zhu Daichou a one-sover and see how this term, to borrow chopsticks to make a
1:10.0	plan on someone's behalf, came about. Like a healthy share of these Chinese sayings, this one comes
1:16.2	to us from Sima Chen's Records of the Grand Historian from the chapter Liohou Shijia, the family of
1:23.5	Liohou. Marquis Lioh was one of the honorary titles given to one of the dramatist persona of our
1:29.6	Cheng Yu for this time. But before we dive in, let's break these four characters down and see what we
1:35.5	got to work with this time. Jia Zhu Daichou to Jia something is to borrow or lend or in this
1:43.6	example to make use of. Zhu is another word for chopsticks. Jia Zhu to borrow chopsticks.
1:51.1	And Dai means to take the place of or substitute. Last character Chou means to prepare or plan.
1:59.2	That also means strategy as a noun, as well as a chip, a gambling chip. So Jia Zhu Daichou,
2:07.1	borrow or make use of chopsticks to Dai Chou take the place of strategy. Well, maybe chat GPT
2:15.2	can figure this one out easy, but for anyone unfamiliar with this backstory,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Laszlo Montgomery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Laszlo Montgomery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.