use the neighbour 's field as an outlet for one 's overflow(yǐ lín wéi hè)

use the neighbour 's field as an outlet for one 's overflow

It is a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is y ǐ L í NW é IH è, which means to take a neighboring country as a big puddle and discharge its flood there. It is a metaphor for transferring difficulties or evils to others only for one's own interests. It's from Mencius, the second part of Gaozi.

The origin of Idioms

"Mencius · gaozixia:" so Yu took the four seas as a gully. Today, my son is a beggar for his neighbor. "

Idiom usage

It's more formal; it's predicate and attribute; it's derogatory. Take Mao Zedong's "rectifying the party's style of work" as an example: "a person who takes his neighbor as a beggar and does not think about other departments, places or other people is called a departmentalist." some selfish people never think of others when they do things, and even take their neighbors as their own.

Idiom story

After inspecting the flood situation in various places, Yu felt that the problem could not be fundamentally solved by simply plugging the water with soil, and more importantly, the water should be dredged out. To this end, he vigorously dug ditches to let the water flow into the ocean. Yu led the people to work hard in the field for 13 years, and he once went to his home three times without entering. In the end, he conquered the flood and made the rivers open to the sea, dredged the lakes and pumped energy. The land that used to be submerged has now become fertile land. At the beginning of the Warring States period, there was a water conservancy expert named Bai Gui, who was also very famous. Whenever there are cracks, leaks, or seepage in the dyke, he will be able to repair them as soon as he arrives. Later, he was invited by the state of Wei to be prime minister. The monarch of the state of Wei trusted him very much. Once Mencius came to the state of Wei. When Bai Gui met him, he showed that he had extraordinary water control skills, and even boasted: "my water control skills have surpassed Dayu!" Mencius, a very learned man, refuted him on the spot and said, "what you said is wrong. Dayu took the four seas as a big ditch and dredged them along the water. As a result, all the floods flowed into the sea, which was beneficial to the people and harmless to the people. Today's term for water control is just building dikes to block rivers and treating neighboring countries as big ditches. As a result, all floods flow to other countries, which is beneficial to others but harmful to people. How can this method of water control compare with that of Dayu?

Chinese PinYin : yǐ lín wéi hè