From time to time

From time to time

From time to time, as a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is B ù sh í zh ī x ū, which means need at any time, not at the scheduled time. It comes from the ode to the red cliff.

The origin of Idioms

Su Shi of the Song Dynasty wrote in his ode to the Red Cliff: "I have been drinking wine for a long time, waiting for my son's need from time to time."

Idiom usage

It may be needed sometime. Example: in ordinary times, it is very considerate for the people to worry about it, and it is only for the people to slow down the dispute from time to time. Preface to sending Xu Zicai to Fuyang by Chen Liang of Song Dynasty

Idiom story

During the Song Dynasty, Su Shi, the magistrate of Mizhou, was falsely accused of writing poems and was later demoted to the vice envoy of Huangzhou regiment. During his stay in Huangzhou, he met two good friends. When a friend got a fresh bass, Su Shi asked his wife for wine. His wife Wang Runzhi had prepared wine for him in case of emergency. They took a boat to visit Chibi until they had a good time. In the Shenzong Dynasty of the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi was framed and sentenced to Huangzhou (now Huanggang County, Hubei Province). During this period, Su Shi often visited chibiji, which was outside the city twice. He compared this place to Chibi, the ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms. In this way, he created the feeling of thinking about the ancient times and wrote the ode to the former Chibi and the ode to the latter Chibi. The former Chibi Fu was written in autumn, in which the feeling of remedying the present and recalling the past was expressed by the scene of Su Sa; the latter Chibi Fu was written in winter, in which the sadness was expressed by the scenery of vicissitudes. The phrase "from time to time must" can be seen in the poem "Ode to the Red Cliff". It describes that Su Shi and his two friends were walking at night. They raised their heads to see the beautiful moon, and they had a good time drinking. One of his friends happened to have a fish to drink, so Su Shi went home to ask his wife for wine. His wife said, "I've been drinking wine for a long time, so that I can wait for my son's needs from time to time. I've hidden good wine so that you can use it at any time. Later, the idiom "need at any time" evolved from here. It is used to refer to need at any time. Wang Zhi, another scholar of the Song Dynasty, wrote on Li Min Zhazi: "supervisors do not care for prefectures and counties, so they are in urgent need. If they slow down, they will be in full swing. If they are forced to cut, they will be in a hurry. Among them, "jiansi" was the official name of Song Dynasty, responsible for supervising local officials. The whole sentence means: the supervisor does not know how to sympathize with the local authorities, and will put forward demands at any time and force the local authorities to cooperate. If the local authorities fail to respond in time, they will be impeached. "Unexpected needs" here refers to the unexpected needs raised at any time.