Review: Dictionary of 1000 Chinese Proverbs

When I got this book in 2010, I thought it would illuminate the full, 5000-year depth of Chinese wisdom, and perhaps explain the origins of the 四字熟语 (four character sayings).

But no. This is just a laundry list of sayings from various sources, with the main part organized alphabetically according to pinyin spelling, and the original 汉字 hand-written-out in the back section.

Given that this was originally published in 1998, I recognize that there were typographical limitations regarding what publishers could do. However, we’re beyond that point now, and this book is just plain obsolete. Here’s what I mean.
This is page 65, the first page of the "M" chapter. It begins with the "Ma" section, which is the pinyin spelling for 马 (horse, mā). You can probably guess that this section has proverbs relating to horses. This is true.

However, #423 "Excessive scoldings and beatings lose their intended effect" (常骂不惊常打不灵) has nothing to do with horses. It's grouped with horse-related stuff because the word for abuse is 骂 (mà). Although the tones are different (and therefore the pronunciation), you wouldn't know that by looking at the pinyin on this page. As far as this book is concerned, 马 and 骂 are the same word. This is a poor way to organize things.

It would have been better to group the proverbs by topic according to the English words (horse vs. abuse), or even to use the diacritical marks and organize them by the Chinese words. Either this was not possible at the time, or this was unfeasible. Either way, it's a pain in the neck to navigate.

As an added layer of difficulty, the hanzi used in the back are the traditional characters (繁体字) used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, not the Mainland Chinese characters used by the PRC today (简体字). And then, just for fun, they're all handwritten. Sometimes just deciphering a character is difficult.
And finally, while some proverbs are pretty good, many are just plain banal. #423 (above) makes sense to me because I have teenage children. But #426 老马识途 "An old horse knows everything" is not particularly enlightening. I mean, yes, old people are wise, but I didn’t really learn anything new there.

Others are cryptic. #510 钱财身外物 "Money is not inherent to man" sounds good, but what does it mean?

Once upon a time, it might have been cool to rewrite this book the way *I* think it should have been. To decode, reorganize, and categorize a digital tome of Chinese wisdom that I could bust out during a Facebook argument and (in my imagination) blow everyone's mind.

This was never realistic though. Two years after I bought this book, a newer version came out. I have no idea if the authors made any changes to the layout, but at this point it wouldn't matter even if they did. It's time I moved on.