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拔苗助長 — haste makes waste: chengyu story and meaning

拔苗助長 — To damage what you want to help by rushing it. Used for well-meant interference that backfires: cramming, over-watering, over-managing.

Simplified

拔苗助长

Literal meaning

to pull seedlings upward to help them grow

Source

Mencius (4th–3rd century BCE), Gong Sun Chou chapter

When to use it

Said of counterproductive rushing, e.g. cramming a beginner class with advanced grammar in week one.

The story

A farmer in Song worried that his rice seedlings were growing too slowly. One evening he walked the rows and tugged every shoot a little higher out of the mud, then went home exhausted and proud, announcing to his family that he had helped the crop grow. His sons ran to look and found every seedling wilted and dead by morning. Mencius tells it against forcing moral or mental growth: a plant needs sun, water, and patience — yanking at it is not care, it is killing.

Example

Characters

• 拔
• 苗
• 助
• 長

More chengyu stories

• 畫蛇添足 (waak6 se4 tim1 zuk1) — To spoil something good by adding what it does not need. Used when extra touches make a finished job worse, not better.
• 守株待兔 (sau2 zyu1 doi6 tou3) — To hope lightning strikes twice instead of working for what you want. Used for people who copy a one-off lucky break instead of adapting.
• 亡羊補牢 (mong4 joeng4 bou2 lou4) — Losses already taken are a reason to fix the cause, not to give up. Used to encourage action after a failure: repair the hole, then carry on.
• 掩耳盜鈴 (jim2 ji5 dou6 ling4) — To pretend a problem does not exist by blocking out the evidence, in a way that fools nobody but yourself. Used for self-deception that is obvious to everyone else.

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