ask a tiger for its skin

ask a tiger for its skin

Seeking skin with a tiger, a Chinese idiom, pronounced y ǔ h ǔ m ó up í, means to discuss with the tiger to peel off its skin. Metaphor has a conflict of interests with the object it seeks, and it can never succeed. The latter refers to discussing with the villain and asking him to sacrifice his own interests. This work "seeks skin with Fox". From Taiping Yulan.

The origin of Idioms

Taiping Yulan volume 208 quoted Fu Zi as saying, "if you want to seek the fur of the fox for the fur of thousands of gold, if you want to have the treasure of little prison, you want to seek the shame of the sheep. Before you die, the fox will flee under the heavy hill, and the sheep will hide in the deep forest."

Analysis of Idioms

[synonym] looking for the moon in a haystack, wasting one's efforts, looking for the moon in a haystack

Idiom usage

It has a derogatory meaning

Idiom story

The monarch of the state of Lu wanted Confucius to be the commander in chief, but all the officials opposed him. They were not sure for a moment. They planned to discuss with the ministers before making a decision. When they met Zuo Qiuming, Duke Ding asked him, "I want Confucius to be the commander in chief. Do you want to discuss with the ministers?" Qiu Ming replied: "Confucius is a recognized sage today. If a sage holds an official post, others will have to leave the official post. What will happen if you discuss with those who may leave the official post? I have heard such a story: in the Zhou Dynasty, there was a man who loved to wear leather clothes and ate exquisite food. He planned to sew an expensive fox fur robe, so he discussed with the fox and said, "give me some of your fur." Fox a listen, all fled to the mountain forest. He also wanted to sacrifice with fat mutton, so he went to the sheep and said, "please help me. Cut off two Jin of your meat. I'm going to sacrifice." Before he finished, the sheep screamed in terror, told each other, and went into the woods to hide. In this way, the man didn't sew a fox skin robe for ten years, and didn't do a sacrifice for five years. What's the reason? The reason is that he found the wrong object to discuss. Now you are going to make Kong Qiu a Sikou, but you are going to discuss with those who resign because of this. Isn't it that you want to seek skin from a fox and meat from a sheep? What's the difference between the two? "