Dropping the Pen and Joining the Army

Characters:

Pronunciation: Tou(2) Bi(3) Cong(2) Rong(2)

Explanation: Said of giving up paper work to start fighting on the battlefield

The Story: Ambassador Ban Chao in the Eastern Han Dynasty studied hard ever since he was young, and he was determined to devote his life to his country.

In 62 A.D., he moved with his brother Ban Gu to the capital, Luoyang. At that time, his family was poor. He had to copy documents for government agencies to earn money for his old mother. Ban Chao was very unsatisfied with his life.

One day, he dropped down his pen and sighed: "A great man should be like Fu Jiezi and Zhang Qian who made contributions in distant places. How could I spend so much of my life with just pens and ink?"

Soon he threw away his pen and then joined the army. He fought heroically and earned great honors on the battlefield. Later he also served as an ambassador to the Western Region and became a famous militarist and diplomat in history.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Yi(1) jiu(3) san(1) qi(1) nian(2) qi(1) yue(4), ta(1) tou(2) bi(3) cong(2) rong(2).

Usage Example (English translation): In July 1937, he dropped the pen and joined the army.

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.