Cat and mouse sleep together

Pinyin: māo shǔ tóng mián

Definition: Cat and mouse sleep together. It is a metaphor for officials who neglect their duties and protect their subordinates from doing bad things. It is also a metaphor for the upper and lower parties collaborating together.

Source: "New Tang Book·Five Elements Chronicles": "In November of the first year of Longshuo, cats and rats lived together in Luozhou. Rats lurked and elephants stole; cats were responsible for catching and nipping, but they lived together with rats. , like a thief who abandons his position and allows a traitor to do so."

Image a cat and paint a tiger

Pinyin: zhào māo huà hǔ

Explanation: Metaphor of imitating a person.

Fighting for cats and losing cows

Pinyin: zhēng māo diū niú

Interpretation: Metaphor of greed for small things and loss of big things.

Get chestnuts from the fire

Pinyin: huǒ zhōng qǔ lì

Interpretation: It is a metaphor for being taken advantage of by others, risking your efforts but getting nothing.

Source: The fable "The Monkey and the Cat" by La Fontaine, a seventeenth-century French fable poet, contains: The monkey tricked the cat into getting a chestnut from the fire. The chestnut was eaten by the monkey, but the cat burned the hair on its feet. dropped.