a hopeless task
Steaming sand for rice, a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is zh ē ngsh ā w é if à n, which means steaming sand into rice, which means things can't be successful. From Jin Jian Ji.
The origin of Idioms
The 19th edition of Jin Jian Ji written by Zhou Lvjing of Ming Dynasty: "purity is Bodhi, love and dye are hard to leave, steaming sand is the end of the meal, and repentance is the end of the day."
Idiom usage
As an object or attribute; used in figurative sentences.
a hopeless task
stand without peer in one 's generation - gài shì wú shuāng
water rushes down and covers hundreds of miles of land - yī xiè bǎi lǐ
with circulation of a manifesto , the trouble is settled - yǐ ruò zhì qiáng