Once upon a time, there lives a young man who likes to read aloud, but he never thoroughly understands his literature's contents, or he only catches part of the importance of what he is reading, or maybe he does not grasp the importance at all. Yet he considered himself knowledgable. One day he went to buy some fruit. On the market the old man selling pears told him that raw pears are good for one's teeth but bad for one's spleen. Another old man selling dates told him raw dates are good for one's spleen but bad for one's teeth. Hearing those words the self-important man said he knew a way to enjoy the nutritional benefits from both, while avoiding the negative side effects. "I could chew pears, but don't swallow them and swallow dates without chewing them." he said. "By doing this, both of my teeth and my spleen will not be hurt." He did what he said and he was choked by a date.
This joke gave rise to the idiom, which refers to lapping up information without digesting it, or reading without comprehension.

In the Spring and Autumn Period (chūn qiū 春秋时期,770-476 BC), in the State of Qi there was a man who always let his imagination run away with him. One day he even worried that the sky would falll on his head. He was so worried that he could neither eat nor sleep. Later, someone persuade him that his fears were groundless.This idioms satirizes those who worry unnecessary.

In the Warring States Period (zhàn guó 战国), Duke Wei of Qi neglected state affairs, for the first three years of his reign, giving himself over to dissipation. One of his minister, Chun Yukun (chún yú kūn)who had a good sense of humor, said to him:”There is a big bird which has neigher taken wing nor sung for three years.” The duke answered, “Once that bird starts to fly and sing, it will astonish the world.” The duke thereupon devoted himself to his duties and built his state up into a powerful one. This idiom is used to indicate that a person may rise from obscurity and achieve greatness.

Once upon a time, there lived an old man in Song Kingdom, who raised a lot of monkeys at home. The old man fed each monkey eight acorns every day, four in the morning and four in the evening. Later he fed so many monkeys that he had not enough acorns. So he wanted to feed monkeys seven acorns each day. Then he discussed with his monkeys, “From today on, I will give each of you four acorns in the morning and three acorns in the evening. Is that O.K.?” Hearing this, all the monkeys got angry. How come lack one in the evening? Then the old man changed to say, “I'll give each of you four acorns in the morning and three acorns in the evening.” Thinking that there were still four in the evening, all the monkeys became happy again.Three in the morning, four in the evening: The idiom originally means to fool others by playing tricks. It later extends to mean changing one’s mind frequently or not being responsible.Other expressions: to play fast and loose or to chop and change.

There was a state called zhou (zhōu 周) in the chinese history. One day, the king of zhou asked his officials for advice on dealing with prisoners of war.An official said, "i once heard if you love someone, you are intended to love even the crows on the roof of his house; if you hate someone, you are intended to hate even the walls and the parapets of his. The prisoners of war were enemies fighting against us. In my opinion, we'd better kill them all."