work fruitlessly(chuī shā chéng fàn)

work fruitlessly

Cooking with sand is a Chinese idiom. Its pinyin is Chu ī sh ā ch é NGF à n, which means cooking with sand. It means it's hard but useless. It comes from Gu Kuang's difficult journey in Tang Dynasty.

The origin of Idioms

Gu Kuang, Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem: "if you don't work hard, you can't eat."

Idiom explanation

Cook with sand. It's hard work but useless.

Chinese PinYin : chuī shā chéng fàn