The idiom Zheng Renmai refers to a person who is rigid in his work and cannot be flexible.

Answer: Zheng people buy shoes.

Zheng people buy shoes

zhèng rén mǎi lǚ

Explanation

Used to satirize people who only believe in dogma and ignore reality.

Source

"Han Feizi·Wai Chu Shuo Upper Left"

Usage

Subject-predicate form; used as attributive and adverbial; with derogatory meaning

Synonyms

Copying and copying dogma mechanically

Lantern riddles

Henan people buy shoes

Allusions

A Zheng man buys shoes

When a Zheng man has shoes and puts them on his shoes, he first puts them on his own and then sits on them. When he comes to the market, he forgets to take care of them. When he has got the shoes, he says: "I forgot to carry them." "Return to take it." When he rebelled, he was dismissed from the market and could not carry out his duties.

People said: "Why not give it a try?" He said: "It is better to have faith than to have self-confidence."

Translation

There is a man in Zheng who wants to go To buy a pair of shoes, he first measured his feet and then placed the measured size on his seat. He went to the market in a hurry and forgot to bring the size. He had already gotten the shoes, but said, "I forgot to bring the size." He went home to get them. When he came back, the market had closed and he finally didn't buy any shoes.

Someone asked him: "Why don't you try the size of the shoes on your own feet?" He replied: "I would rather believe in the size than my own feet!"

Notes

Zheng - the name of a small country in the Spring and Autumn Period, in present-day Xinzheng County, Henan Province.

Lu - Yinlu, leather shoes, shoes.

Du - the sound "duo" means "to think". It is used as a verb here, which means to calculate and measure. The following character for degree, Yindu, is used as a noun, which means ruler.

It is a pronoun in classical Chinese, here it refers to a good size.

Sitting - Sitting together is a seat, which refers to furniture such as chairs and stools.

Cao - Manage, meaning to bring or hold.

That's it - that's all, it means the end, here it means that the market has been disbanded.

Nothing - nothingness, nothing, here means cannot, cannot.

Comments

This Zheng Guoren made the mistake of dogmatism. He only believed in the size obtained by measuring his feet instead of his own feet. Not only did he make a big joke, he couldn't even buy shoes. In real life, it may not happen that you only trust your foot size when buying shoes, but not your feet, right? But there are indeed people like this. Some people speak, do things, and think about problems only from the textbooks, not from the reality; they believe what is written in the notebooks, but do not believe what is not written in the notebooks but actually exists. In the eyes of such people, only what is written in the notebook is the truth, and what is not written is not the truth. In this way, thoughts will of course become rigid and actions will hit a wall.

Vernacular allusions

In ancient times, there was a man in the state of Zheng who wanted to buy a pair of shoes, so he measured the size of his feet at home. He came to a shop that sold shoes in the market and took a fancy to a pair of shoes. When he was about to buy it, he suddenly found that he had left the measurements at home and forgot to bring them. He said that he had forgotten to bring the measurements and brought them home. I bought the size again, so I headed back. The person next to him asked him, if you buy shoes for yourself, why don't you just try them on for size? Why don't you go with the original size? The man from Zheng Guo said, I would rather believe that the size I measured is appropriate, but the feet may not be accurate. Later, people used the phrase "Zheng people buy shoes" to describe and ridicule those who disregard objective reality and engage in dogmatism.