Getting Worse Steadily

Characters:

Pronunciation: Mei(3) Kuang(4) Yu(4) Xia(3)

Explanation: Said of things that are getting worse

Tone: Neutral

The Story: Zhuang Zi was a famous representative of the Taoism of the Warring States Period.

Once Dong Guozi asked him where Tao was manifested, Zhuang Zi answered: "It exists everywhere."

Dong then asked: "Can you tell in more specific?"

Zhuang Zi therefore started from ants and went on to grass and straw; bricks and tile; defecation and urination and said that these were all where Tao existed. Dong didn't ask any more when he saw Zhuang Zi was getting angry. Zhuang Zi kept going on, "To satisfy what you want and to give you a clear picture of Tao, we can compare it to a pig dealer. The dealer steps on a pig to figure out whether it is fat or thin. Usually he starts from the upper part and then moves downward to the shin. The lower he goes, the easier for him to find out if the pig is really fat or not since the shin is the most difficult part to get fat. The reason for this is called 'getting worse steadily'. That is to say, the lower part one goes, the easier for him to find the fat and the lean."

Later, people called it "getting worse steadily when things are getting worse."

Usage Example (Pinyin): Jing(1) ji(4) wei(1) ji(1) hou(4), ta(1) men(2) de gong(1) si(1) men(3) kuang(4) yu(4) xia(4).

Usage Example (English translation): After the economy crisis, their company was getting worse steadily.

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.