#chineseblr

lit: to point to a deer, and call it a horse

meaning: deliberately misrepresent things; flipping black and white, or right and wrong.

指 - point

鹿 - deer

為 - as

馬 - horse

The Chinese language has interesting four-character idioms called 成語 (chéng yǔ), and there are some interesting history behind all of them. Today, we look at the story behind 指鹿為馬.

Zhao Gao (趙高) was a shrewd politician serving as the carriage officer during the time of Qin Shi Huang, the founding emperor of the Qin Dynasty around the early 3rd century BCE.

When Qin Shi Huang died, Zhao Gao colluded with the younger son of the emperor to intimidate the Chancellor to secretly change the emperor’s final edict to name the younger son Huhai as heir, circumventing the older son Fusu. Huhai eventually become Emperor Qin the Second and Zhao Gao became a favoured official of the new emperor.

Zhao Gao eventually rose to the position of Chancellor after framing the previous chancellor for treason. Still unsatisfied, Zhao Gao wanted to obtain more power, but fearing oppositions among the civil and military officials, Zhao Gao came up with a trick to test their loyalty.

Zhao Gao brought in a deer before the emperor and officials, he proclaimed: “Behold, a horse!”. The emperor laughed: “The Chancellor must be mistaken, calling this deer a horse”.

Zhao Gao then asked his fellow officials whether the deer is indeed a deer, or a horse. Some officials - fearing Zhao Gao’s authority - kept quiet. Others, seeking to gain Zhao Gao’s favour, said it was a fine horse. But some others replied that it was most definitely a deer and not a horse.

Zhao Gao, seeing the deer-callers unwilling to submit to his authority, then schemed to have them removed from their role, exiled or killed. After this incident, all the officials regarded Zhao Gao in fear.

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hello everyone !

大家好！这是我最先的博文，所以我想跟你们介绍我自己一下！你们可以称呼我K或小桃，很开心认识你们！

我已经在学习普通话超过十年，大约在四年级开始上中文补习班。我是在香港出生﹑长大，但因为我是混血儿 (爸爸是英国人，一点中文都不能说！) 我们在家里面平时用英文沟通。因此，我的母语是英文，而我的中文水平不是那么高。我妈妈是香港人，但因为我爸爸不讲中文，我的广东话也不是太好的。(真可怜)

今年六月，我终于毕业大学了，然后以为我可以用这间空时来学习中文，提高我的水平，就决定开这个博客分享我自己学习中文的旅程！

如果你读到这个地方，谢谢你的注意！我希望我可以在languageblr找其他正在学中文的人交友，也可以慢慢来进步我的语言能力！如果你想跟我交通，你可以密我！

[english translation below]

finally started learning chinese again. i did it back during undergrad and got good grades even. but 5 years later i can’t even recall the basics of the basics. lately, my mum’s been obsessed with the untamed and dragged me down that rabbit hole too. we’ve both decided to learn chinese now. dragging my sis too in this mess soon.

started off with tones because it's always been such a daunting part when learning tonal languages. just wanted a refresher and get my basics right with the tones straightaway.