Lioness Roars from the East Bank of the River

Characters:

Pronunciation: he(2) dong(1) shi(1) hou(3)
Explanation: To describe a woman who is very bossy and perhaps cruel to her husband

Tone: Neutral

The Story: In the Song Dynasty, there was a scholar named Chen Zao, he called himself 'Mr. Dragon Hill'. He was very hospitable and often gathered his friends to have parties at home and called some singing girls for fun. His wife Liu was very unhappy and jealous about this. When she heard the girls' songs, Liu would use sticks to hit the wall and shout in the next room, all the guests had to leave then.

Chen Zao feared his wife very much, and everyone knew this. His good friend Su Dongpo one day joked with him and wrote a poem: "Mr. Dragon Hill is a pathetic man; chatting with friends until midnight; suddenly a lioness' roar comes from the east bank; he was perplexed and dropped his stick to the ground."

Later the line 'lioness roars from the east bank' was used to describe a bossy woman, especially a wife.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Ma(3) shang(4) hui(2) jia(1), yao(4) bu ni(3) men(2) jia(1) you(4) he(2) dong(1) shi(1) hou(3) le.

Usage Example (English translation): Go home right now, otherwise there will be a lioness roaring from the east bank of the river in your family.

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.