The Magistrate Sets Fire

Characters:

Pronunciation: zhou(1) guan(1) fang(4) huo(3)

Explanation: Said of the unreasonableness of the rulers

The Story: In the Song dynasty, there was a magistrate named Tian Deng. To safeguard his personal dignity, he claimed that no one had the right to use the word "lantern" which is the same pronunciation as his name, "Deng". If someone dared not to obey this, he would be beaten with a bamboo pole or lashed with a leather whip.

The traditional Lantern Festival (held on January 15th according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar) came, and this is the time when people light lanterns for three days. The official who was in charge of the celebration found himself in a difficult situation because he had to write a notice for the public to inform them of the celebration. He dared not to use the word "lantern", so he wrote a notice: "According to the usual practice, the county is to set fire for three days".

People didn't know whether to laugh or cry when they read the notice. Thus there comes a Chinese saying "the magistrate is allowed to set fire while the ordinary people are not allowed to light lanterns" to satirize the unreasonableness of the rulers.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Zhe(4) tiao(2) "zhou(1) guan(1) fang(4) huo(3)"de zhi(4) du(4), hui(4) rang(4) zhi(2) yuan(2) sheng(1) qi(4) de.

Usage Example (English translation): This 'Magistrate sets fire' rule will make the employees angry.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.