What does 叶公好龙 mean?

叶公好龙 (Yè gōng hào lóng) means 'Lord Ye loves dragons.' It describes someone who claims to love something but is really afraid of it, or doesn't want it, once it actually appears.

Where does Lord Ye Loves Dragons come from?

It comes from the Xin xu, compiled by the Western Han scholar Liu Xiang in the first century BCE. Confucius's student Zizhang tells it to criticise Duke Ai of Lu, who claimed to value talented people but never received him.

What is the English equivalent of 叶公好龙?

There is no exact match. 'All talk and no action' and 'paying lip service' come close, and 'fair-weather fan' describes someone whose love disappears when things get real.

Was Lord Ye a real person?

Yes. Lord Ye, also called Zigao, was a nobleman of the state of Chu who governed the town of Ye in Confucius's time, and he appears in the Analects. The dragon story told about him is a fable.

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Chinese idiom · 声匠改编 · 4:15

Lord Ye Loves Dragons

Lord Ye fills his house with carved dragons. When a real dragon drops by, he runs for his life. The story behind ye gong hao long, told to Duke Ai of Lu.

Narrator

Zizhang

Lord Ye

The Servant Boy

The Real Dragon

0:000:00

Other languages · 2 languages

🇨🇳 中文 🇺🇸 English

About this story

Lord Ye Loves Dragons tells the story behind the Chinese idiom 叶公好龙 (Yè gōng hào lóng), literally 'Lord Ye loves dragons.' It comes from the Xin xu (New Prefaces), a collection compiled by the Western Han scholar Liu Xiang in the first century BCE: Confucius's student Zizhang waits seven days to be received by Duke Ai of Lu, then leaves him the story of Lord Ye, who covered his house with carved dragons and fled when a real one came. Zizhang's point was that the duke only seemed to love talented people. This version keeps that frame story and gives the real dragon a voice of its own.

What it teaches

Saying you love something isn't the same as loving it. Real enthusiasm holds up when the real thing arrives; people who only love the idea of something often run from the thing itself.

Suits

Ages 6 and up

Tips for telling it

Drop your voice and slow down before the dragon appears, then speed up when Lord Ye runs for it.
Ask: did Lord Ye really love dragons? What did he actually love?
In this idiom 好 is read hào, 'to be fond of', not the usual hǎo, 'good'. Lord Ye's name is read Yè today; the older reading is Shè.

Questions people ask

What does 叶公好龙 mean?: 叶公好龙 (Yè gōng hào lóng) means 'Lord Ye loves dragons.' It describes someone who claims to love something but is really afraid of it, or doesn't want it, once it actually appears.
Where does Lord Ye Loves Dragons come from?: It comes from the Xin xu, compiled by the Western Han scholar Liu Xiang in the first century BCE. Confucius's student Zizhang tells it to criticise Duke Ai of Lu, who claimed to value talented people but never received him.
What is the English equivalent of 叶公好龙?: There is no exact match. 'All talk and no action' and 'paying lip service' come close, and 'fair-weather fan' describes someone whose love disappears when things get real.
Was Lord Ye a real person?: Yes. Lord Ye, also called Zigao, was a nobleman of the state of Chu who governed the town of Ye in Confucius's time, and he appears in the Analects. The dragon story told about him is a fable.