Irresistible Funhouse mirror of behavior

Author: Gong Wen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: In the past, I illustrated stories of idioms. After drawing so many, I felt some stories were simply created to teach people to be cunning, such as "Bing bu yan zha" (war is not tiresome without deception) and "Xiao li cang dao" (a hidden knife in a smile). So I found several dictionaries of idioms, hoping to find more joyful idiomatic stories. Oh my, I discovered a big secret—I realized that many idioms were originally just a few words or a sentence from literature, later used as lessons or examples from certain events. Over time, these phrases became idioms, and the events became stories of idioms. That’s when I got the idea to write joyful idiomatic stories. I turned the idiom "pi yu bin ming" (weary from playing tricks) into a fickle, greedy little dog, and "fu tang tao huo" (walk through fire and water) into flood relief efforts. This way, the stories are closer to how we use idioms today and to our daily lives. I also hope these new idiomatic stories will be passed down, perhaps many years from now, they will become part of the standard versions of idiomatic stories. Haha, just kidding, just kidding—everyone just has fun.