Chinese Idioms – Translated 临时抱佛脚

Just feel like writing something on Chinese idioms out of the blue, first of all, as a way to educate non Chinese speakers about the language and secondly to add a bit of humor into it. SO here goes!


Happiness
Image by TW Collins via Flickr

临时抱佛脚:(Lin Shi Bao Fo Jiao) Hold Buddha’s feet when time nears.

Well, the story goes like this, a person in the old days, only goes to the temple and pray to Lord Buddha in the last minute when something happened to him. This guy doesn’t pray throughout his life and only go straight to Lord Buddha and beg for some miracle to happen. Hence, the idiom, beg Buddha’s feet in the minute.

In today’s term 临时抱佛脚 is normally used in the context of LAST MINUTE preparation for exams.  In Singapore, the way to say this would be Chiong ahhhhh, 冲啊!!

In all, this post is not about praying, nor about Buddhism, it’s just probably something that I want to write to remind you guys that holding Buddha’s feet is never the right thing to do. Always be prepared in life, whether it’s for exams, or for other things like all sorts of financial planning, work etc.

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