Buying a Box and Returning the Pearls inside

Characters:

Pronunciation: mai(3) du(2) huan(2) zhu(1)
Explanation: A saying that means to take a lesser thing instead of the greater thing

Tone: Negative

The Story: Once upon a time...there was a jeweler in the Chu Kingdom. He went to the Zheng Kingdom to sell jewelry one day. On the way, he chose some very precious wood to make a box and decorated it with various designs. Then he put some pearls inside and carried it to the market. A man saw it and was attracted by the delicate box. In order to buy it, he offered a very high price. The jeweler liked the price and gladly sold the box to the man. However, later the man returned to the jeweler and gave him the pearls that lay inside the box. The man told the jeweler that he was only interested in the beautiful box.

The foolish man just saw the beautiful box and ignored its real value--the pearls inside had the true monetary value!

Usage Example (Pinyin): Yin(1) wei(4) he(2) zi hen(3) piao(4) liang(4), wo(3) mai(3) le na(4) zhi(1) gang(1) bi(3). Wo(3) jie(3) jie shuo(1) wo(3) mai(3) du(2) huan(2) zhu(1).

Usage Example (English translation): I bought a pen just because its box is very beautiful. My sister said it's like buying a box and returning the pearls inside.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.