Chinese Idiom Story #1 掩耳盗铃

In this series of Chinese idiom short stories, we’ll be introducing Chinese idioms that have a long-standing history in ancient China but are still in use today. A background story of the idiom will be provided, along with sample sentence(s) to give you an idea of how to use them.

Today we will learn the idiom - 掩耳盗铃

General Meaning

Let’s look at the four characters that form this idiom individually:

• 掩(yan3, cover)

• 耳(er3, ear)

• 盗(dao4, steal)

• 铃(ling2, bell)

This idiom means "cover your ears and steal the bell", we often use this idiom to describe the behaviour of lying to yourself. Why is it so? Let’s take a look at its background story!

Background Story

Once upon a time, there was a man who saw a big bell in front of someone's house and wanted to steal it. But the bell was big and heavy, so he brought a hammer(锤子, chui2 zi0) and tried to break it and steal it piece by piece.

But the hammer will create a loud sound that everyone can hear, and he will certainly be found. He thought about it again: If you cover your ears(耳朵, er3 duo0) when ringing the bell, you won't hear anything! He felt that if he could not hear the sound, others must not hear it either. Therefore, he covered his ears while using the hammer to ring the bell.

Many people heard the sound of the bell and came to catch the thief(小偷, xiao3 tou1). This idiom is "cover your ears and steal the bell", we often use this idiom to describe the behaviour of lying to yourself.

Sample Sentences

• 做人一定不要自欺欺人，不然只是掩耳盗铃。

  Zuò rén yí dìng bú yào zì qī qī rén, bù rán zhǐ shì yǎn ěr dào líng.

  You must not deceive yourself, if not you are just “covering your ears and stealing the bell”.

Hope that this post will help you better understand the meaning and the context of using this idiom. Stay tuned to our blog for more Chinese idiom learning posts. Do send us an email if you are interested to learn Mandarin Chinese in Singapore! See you in the next post.