Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, Lossa Montgomery with you again.

If you're looking for the Chinese Sayings podcast, you're tuned to the right station.

I'm back after an eight-day China, Hong Kong trip.

And as you could see, there's been a slight fall-off

in the number of episodes that are usually produced from this long-running family program.

You know, the Hollywood Writers Strike and all.

But we're back today with one that is all too familiar with us as we painfully wind our way through this third decade of the 21st century. This time we look at the Chinese saying

sure bull lien lien. All fans of the three kingdoms know this one I'm sure but before I get right on it let's look

at the four characters of this chung-yu. Sure, boo, lien-liang-li. Four syllables as

usual, standard equipment for most Chinese sayings.

Shirt means power, force, or influence and like most Chinese characters,

it could mean a whole lot else and bull means no or not or won't.

Leang means the number two when used before Chinese counter words or it could also mean both or either when talking

about two opposing sides, which is the case in our story today. And lastly, the

character Li means to stand. Power not a couple stand. Hard to tell but I smell

a war or a battle somewhere contained within those four words So let's get to the story.

In the Jan Guo-Csu, the strategies of the warring states, one of the great reservoirs of Chinese sayings,

this Changu first appears.

This ancient classic text that gave us so much insight into the warring states period,

originally referred to the kingdoms of Chin and Chu to rivals whose enmity at times gave us the phrase

Van Tien-Sha-Chia-Gang-guo, Fe-Chin, Yeaeyu, Fey-Chin, are Chin, Lien-Kwa-Chu-Chu are Chin, Lienkwa-Chai Shilh, Chis Shir-Bu-Liang Li.

Which essentially means when Chu is strong, Chin is weak and when Chin is strong, Chu is weak. The two cannot coexist.

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