Guide to every day Chinese: Idiom zuò huái bú luàn
Posted 01-29-2008 at 02:35 AM by cchello
成语：坐怀不乱
发音：zuò huái bú luàn
解释：形容男子在两性关系方面作风正派。源于春秋时鲁 国的柳下惠将受冻的女子裹于怀中，没有发生非礼行为。
I was just browsing through the book 古文观止 and I found this chengyu: 坐怀不乱. It’s hard to make sense of it, so I’ll tell you the story behind it first: It was during the spring and autumn period, where a man named 柳下惠 (liǔ xià huì) stayed in a hostel overnight. At that time another girl with little clothing came to spend the night, too. Instead of showing some, ehm, inappropriate behavior, he was a real gentleman and gave her his cloak and even held her in his arms the whole night, without harassing her. Hach, what a nice guy
坐怀 in this context means to sit and hold tight. Just picture him sitting and holding the girl in a protective manner. 不乱 means not confused/ not disordered. In this context it means that he doesn’t have all kinds of thoughts. Maybe you have heard of the chengyu 胡思乱想.
So the chengyu 坐怀不乱 is used to describe a very gentleman-like guy, who shows very respectful or appropriate behavior to girls. Since it is hard to make sense of the separate words, I hope it was helpful to hear the story behind it.
Finally some examples:
• 不知道世上真的有像柳下惠那般坐怀不乱的男人吗？
I wonder if there are really gentlemen that are as handsome and kind as Liu Xiahui.
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