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Red ink stains one red, black ink stains one black
created by
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Sun Mar 07 2004 at 10:31:13
近朱者赤，近墨者黑 (jìn zhū zhě chì，jìn mò zhě hēi)
A Chinese
proverb
similar to the English saying "Bad
company
corrupt
s good
character
", and
extreme
ly
similar
to the Greek proverb "
A man is known by the company he keeps
".
The
origin
of this saying lies in the way the
Chinese
used to prepare
ink
for writing and painting. There were two
basic
colours available in the ancient days:
red
(赤; chì) and
black
(黑; hēi). Red ink was known in Chinese as 朱砂墨 (zhū shā mò), while black ink was simply called 墨 (mò). To prepare the ink, one had to grind an ink-
stick
in an ink container (about as big as an
ash tray
), taking care that one's long
sleeve
s stayed out of the way.
Grind
ing the ink-stick often meant that the ink would
stain
your fingers (or sleeves, if you were
careless
or
inept
). Therefore, another person could always tell which ink you were using by the
colour
s on your hands.
This principle was applied in
predict
ing the way a person's character would turn out by the kind of company he was keeping; or
vice versa
to tell a person's friends by his
personality
.
printable version
chaos
A man is known by the company he keeps.
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Corrections and Clarifications
Can't she just carpool or something?
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stating the obvious
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false friend
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