To eat the Date Whole
As we all know, Chinese learning is very difficult to understand for foreign students, let alone Chinese idioms; but in other words, it is very necessary to learn Chinese for everyone.
Today I will introduce the idiom "囫囵吞枣 (húlún tūnzǎo)" to you. "囫囵 (húlún)" means "the whole;" "吞 (tūn)" means to "swallow;" "枣 (zǎo)" is "date.”This idiom means "to eat the date whole."
Learn this online Chinese idiomatic story: A long time ago, a person who considered himself clever went to a friend's party. Everyone was chatting together while eating fruits. A guest among the group said, "It is hard to have the best of both worlds. Let's take eating fruits as an example. Pears are good for our teeth, but they harm our stomachs if we eat too many of them. Likewise, dates are good for our stomachs, but bad for our teeth." The others agreed with the guest. The man who considered himself clever continued the conversation by saying, "This problem is easy to solve. We can discard the pulps when eating pears in order to avoid hurting our stomachs, and we can also eat the date whole in order to protect our teeth."
In jest, a fellow guest at the party remarked, "You really 囫囵吞枣 (húlún tūnzǎo) eat dates whole!”Following this incident, Chinese people often use this idiom to point out when a person accepts information without digesting and analyzing it.
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