Chopsticks are long and bowls are short
Cuan long bowl short, Chinese idiom, Pinyin is zh ù ch à NGW ǎ NDU ǎ n, meaning that household utensils are not complete. It comes from Ling Mengchu's the first time to make a surprise.
The origin of Idioms
Ling Mengchu of the Ming Dynasty, Volume 6 of "the second moment makes a surprise" says: "when Wang Sheng comes back, most of the chairs and tables in the family are incomplete; the chopsticks are long and the bowls are short, which are not like other people's appearance, and his wife is corrupt."
Ling Mengchu of the Ming Dynasty, Volume 16 of the book "the surprise of the first carving of a table", says: "since the death of Wang, Canruo has spent a lot of money on the solar eclipse, and his chopsticks are long and his bowls are short. "
Idiom usage
It refers to poverty.
Examples
Their home is very simple.
Chopsticks are long and bowls are short
both the higher and lower levels find themselves in a predicament - shàng xià jiāo kùn