a crab in boiling water—be at a loss
Crab in soup is a Chinese word, which describes the confusion. It comes from the Song Dynasty's shidaoyuan biography of lanterns in Jingde.
Soup: hot water. source: Song Shidao's original "Jingde Zhuandeng Lu" Volume 19: "it's like a crab in soup, hands and feet are in a hurry." one day, one's eyes fall to the ground, and one's hands are in a hurry. (popular edition of birds and fish by Zhai Hao in Qing Dynasty)
a crab in boiling water—be at a loss
lift a sentence out of context - duàn zhāng zhāi jù
attend to trifles to the neglect of essentials - shě běn zhú mò
do not know what oneself or others are talking about - bù zhī suǒ yún