A Walking Corpse

Characters:

Pronunciation: xing (2) shi(1) zou(3) rou(4)

Explanation: Said of someone whose life is meaningless.

The Story: In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a guy named Ren Mo. Ren always said to himself, "if one wants to be a useful person, he must study hard." By the time he was fourteen, he hadn't had a regular teacher yet. So he had to carry his bookcase to a distant place for advice. Sometimes he had to live in a shed made of straw in the woods and used a twig as a pen and tree sap as ink to write. He read in the moonlight. When there was no moon, he would light a straw torch. Whenever he got inspirations from his reading, he would write them down on his clothes immediately. Day after day and year after year, Ren eventually became a learned person. Many people came to him and became his students.

Before he died, he taught his students, "If a person studies hard, he is to be alive even he is dead; if a person doesn't study, he is to be dead even he is alive. He is nothing but a walking corpse that has no soul."

Usage Example (Pinyin): ta(1) li(2) kai(1) hou(4), nu(3) hai(2) hen(3) shang(1) xin(1), xiang(4) xing(2) shi(1) zou(3) rou(4) yi(1) yang(4) de sheng(1) huo(2) zhe.

Usage Example (English translation): After he left, the girl was very depressed and lived like a walking corpse.

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.