Today's Chinese Idiom story —— Fine feathers make fine birds？

佛要金装，人靠衣装 - fo2 yao4 jin1 zhuang1 , ren2 kao4 yi1 zhuang1

A Buddha must be adorned with gold as man must rely on impressive garments. This is an ancient Chinese expression which stresses the importance of how dress style influences appearance. Much like how the Buddha draws on it's solemn dignity through gold.

In the Qing Dynasty, Cai Dongfan - a well known historian, spent 10 years documenting and writing a historical biography of the late Empress Dowager Cixi. When Cixi first entered the court, she came from a poor family and was unable to afford nice clothes, her appearance, dull. However, she soon became favoured by the then current Empress Dowager for her commitment to the court and Emperor, and received new clothes made with better material and decorated with jade and gold. With her new attire, her appearance gave her more favour in the court and allowed her to bear a son with the Emperor. When her son became the Emperor himself, she became the Empress Dowager. Such is an example of how change of attire can change the appearance and appeal of a person.

Another expression with a similar meaning is "A flower is not complete without it's leaves, together they are more beautiful." A direct translation of the original Chinese expression which expresses the importance of the leaves that decorate the flower, making it more beautiful. As with most expressions there are many ways of expressing the moral sentiment and perhaps the most well known expression in English that captures the same meaning is "Fine feathers make fine birds." Regardless of which expression used, the emphasis is on how superficial decoration and packaging such as fine attire can contribute to the elevation of ones physical appearance and appeal.

---

But is the manner of dressing really that important?

There are a significant number of people who believe that the utmost important quality in a person is their inner self. Less importance should be placed on the individuals exterior appearance. However, as people become more busy with their lives and careers often dealing with a lot of pressure and stress, they have less time to spend on getting to know people's inner depths. Usually, the first impression plays a vital role in deciding :

a. I need to befriend this person.
b. I'd like to spend more time getting to know them.
c. If possible avoid.
d. Avoid like the plague.

Fairy tale hair make-overs

---

In one study, it is shown that when a person meets another person, the first impressions are formed with 55% visual and 38% aural stimulus. Meanwhile, only 7% of what you converse about actually contributes to what people think of you when they first meet you. So, this tells us that our subconscious mind favours those we consider having acceptable outer appearances before we decide on getting to know them better.

When your furry friends get haircuts

---

The secret seating arrangements in restaurants：

A documentary was made for Channel 4 called 《Tricks of the restaurant trade》and revealed some of the dark secrets of the restaurant trade. One shocking revelation was how the restaurants would make seating arrangements based on the appearance of the guest diners. In the documentary, two models were sent to three different high end restaurants in London. Each time, they were invited to sit in the most visible and central table of the restaurant. After the two models left the restaurant, one of the hosts of the show - Adam Pearson (who has severe facial disfigurement due to a rare genetic disorder) expressed his intention to sit at the now vacated tables previously used by the models. However, each time, the restaurant attendants would tell him that both the restaurant and bar were full.

In another restaurant, Pearson waited patiently for a very long time to no avail. Finally, Pearson and his companions were offered a table in a narrow and secluded corner of the restaurant whilst the two models were offered seats by the French windows almost immediately.

Good-looking people sitting by the window act like free advertisement to the restaurant. It is as if these are unwritten rules of the trade. However, these unwritten rules are not just practised at this restaurant, this country or even this trade. Judging people by their appearance is prevalent world wide, the result of people becoming superficial and callous.

---

People's attitudes towards attire ：

It's horrible to think that physical disfigurement can lead to such detestable discrimination, but even more superficial aspects of appearance such as what you wear can affect people's judgement too. For example, in this short-film by UNICEF, we have a 6 year old girl actress - Anano, who plays a lost girl standing in the street by herself. At first she wore pretty clothes as she stood in the street looking lost. Passerby's would come over and show concern and some even offered to call the police to help her. In another scenario, Anano, also dressed in pretty attire was told to enter a restaurant and sit at a table with people uninformed of her situation. The guests would welcome her, making good conversation and even pet her head.

Anano was then dressed up in rags and dirty clothing, again visiting a restaurant and sitting with strangers. This time, the response was vastly different. Guests would quickly avoid her fearing that she is a pick-pocket or thief, they even told the restaurant attendants to kick her out of the restaurant. In the same scenario as before, Anano was then asked to stand in the street looking lost, except this time wearing dirty rag clothes. Nobody came to see if she was OK. In fact, this made Anano feel so distressed that she cried and the experiment was ended. This was a frightening illustration of people's negligence to homeless children but moreover a sad reflection of how appearance and the judgement of appearance can lead to great harm.

---

Therefore, in China there is another expression which says : "People should not be judged by their appearance". Similar to the English expression "Don't judge a book by it's cover", the moral of the expression is that appearance cannot determine someones innate qualities. Most successful people would not attribute their success to the way they look, and rightfully should be proud of the inner qualities which have afforded them their success.

An ancient Chinese fable：

Yangzi came to the Song Empire and stayed in a hotel where the owner had two wives. One of the owners wives was ugly, and the other one was beautiful. To Yangzi's surprise, the hotel owner seemed to favour the uglier wife, surely he should like the more beautiful one? The hotel owner explained that the wife considered more beautiful only cared about her outer appearance and in doing so, her inner-self became progressively uglier. To him, she was no longer beautiful. On the other hand, the uglier wife, aware of her short-comings in physical appearance, worked very hard to make up for it with many other positive inner qualities. In his eyes, she became more beautiful.

I believe that true beauty in this world is not based on outer appearance. The positive inner qualities a person has can always overcome any short comings in outer physical appearance. As long as one has a healthy system of moral values, they are always able to manifest beauty from the inside, out. Reliance on pretty clothes and fancy attire are short term and fleeting, only through meaningful development of our inner qualities and wisdom can the spirit of beauty be achieved our lives.

Source:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

---

今天我想分享另一个有趣的成语，大家不要走开，和我一起来探索一下吧。佛要金装，人靠衣装是中国古代的成语。意思是，人的模样要靠衣饰打扮，就如同佛像的庄严要通过黄金来显现。

清朝蔡东藩用10年写成的《慈禧太后演义》, 书中讲到, 他刚刚入宫,因为家境贫穷,穿的是粗麻布衣, 之后因为受到太后赏赐,衣服换成了好料子的,带着玉和金子的装饰,整个人显得精神多了。所以这“佛要金装，人靠衣装“确实是经验得出的名言。

这句话也被叫做，花儿需要叶子的衬托才显得更美，英文里更是翻译成鸟儿要有漂亮的羽毛才迷人。看来无论是谁都需要透过包装来给自己加分， 强调人要注重仪表装饰。可是打扮真的非常重要吗？

在人的感官之中，视觉占55%，听觉38%，谈话内容只有7%。也就是说，在你外表给人印象不差的情况下，别人才有兴趣进一步了解你的内涵和实力。

餐厅安排座位的机密：
英国第4频道的纪录片《餐厅的诡计》揭露某些餐厅小机密——餐厅根据顾客外表安排座位。
节目组派出2位模特来到三家位于伦敦的顶级餐厅。他们都被安排到了最正中又显眼的位置。而两名模特儿离开后，纪录片的主办人之一Adam Pearson（他的面部有一些缺陷），在他表示想坐在相同的位置的时候，尽管有两个空的座位，餐厅的工作人员还是告诉他餐厅和酒吧都已经满座了。 颜值高的人坐在窗边，无形中给餐厅打了免费的广告，我想这是安排座位的潜规则。但是这样的情况，不会仅限于这几家餐厅，这一个国家，甚至这一个行业。以貌取人的态度似乎让这个世界变得肤浅和冷酷了一些。
人们对于衣装的态度：
不知道你们是否看过这支短片，当6岁女孩Anano穿漂亮衣服站在街上，吸引了不少路人停下来关心她，有人甚至拿出手机想要报警来帮助她。当Anano穿漂亮衣服，走进餐厅搭坐一张桌子，桌上的其他客人微笑接纳，并抚摸她的头。当化妆师为Anano换上破烂衣服，餐厅里的顾客都躲开她，怕她抢包，甚至要求服务员赶她走。Anano难以忍受大人们的差别对待，难过得哭了。这个短片唤起人们对流浪儿童的关心，更让人们深深忏悔，以貌取人给对方带来的伤害。
所以在中国，又有另一句古话，叫做“人不可貌相”。用来告诫人们，一个人的外表不能代表他的才情和能力，成功的人一定不是只通过外貌而做成事情的。我认为世界上的美，真的不止局限于外表，人们内在精神之美能够克服外形的缺陷，内在一个健康的价值观，世界观才能充分彰显一个人由内而外的美丽。靠衣装外表的美只是一时的，而充满内涵和智慧才是能够美丽一生的灵魂。

---

Welcome to my world of Idioms #1——5

Teaching fish to swim
Love me, love my dog
To put the cart before the horse
One man's meat is another man's poison
Cats hide their paws