Literal meaning of the idiom "Bamboo splits tiles"

The idiom “Split bamboo, broken tiles” is literally interpreted in the book Idioms in Pictures (Compiled by: Nguyen Thi Huong Ly; Pictured by: Nguyen Quang Toan - Kim Dong Publishing House, 2020) as: “When splitting bamboo, the tree already has potential energy, so it releases energy, creating great force. When tiles are impacted so strongly that they break, they also fly into many pieces. If they break in series, it can cause widespread injury. Both splitting bamboo and breaking tiles make loud noises.”

Actually, the author did not understand the literal meaning and thus explained it wrongly. “Split bamboo” and “broken roof tiles” have never been considered as two lethal weapons.

The idiom “Bamboo splits tiles” is a combination of two original Chinese idioms “The world is as strong as splitting bamboo - 勢如破竹” (The world is as strong as splitting bamboo) and “The earth collapses and the tiles break - 土崩瓦解” (The earth collapses and the tiles break; the variant version is “Băng bàn ngoã giải - 冰散瓦解 = Ice melts, tiles break).

The Chinese dictionary explains “breaking bamboo” in two meanings: 1. Splitting bamboo, likened to destroying the enemy one by one, smoothly without any obstacles; 2. Likened to a battle situation being quickly broken and destroyed”. [Original text: 破竹: 1. 劈竹子. 喻循勢而下, 順利無阻; 2. 喻迅速破亡的形勢]. This book uses an example from the Book of Jin - Du Yu's biography: “In ancient times, Yue Yi, thanks to a battle west of the Ji River, unified the powerful Qi state; now our army's prestige has become famous, like splitting bamboo - after passing the first few joints, the following joints will follow the situation and separate, without needing to exert any more effort”.

With the two words “broken tile”, the Chinese dictionary explains two meanings: “1. A broken tile, e.g., collapse or tear, separate; 2. Causing the enemy's forces to disintegrate”. [original text: 1.瓦片碎裂.比喻崩潰或分裂, 分離; 2. 謂使對方的力量崩潰]. This book uses the example in Huainanzi: “Wu Wang held a golden hammer in his left hand, and a white flag in his right hand, waving it once, (the Zhou army) immediately disintegrated like broken tiles, the ground collapsed”.

Thus, when splitting bamboo, people use a knife to split it in half, split it through a few joints at the base, then step on one half and lift the other half up with their hands, the bamboo just splits in half, bursting with a bang like an overwhelming attack, unstoppable. When a tile breaks, it also shatters into pieces, with no way to mend or save it, just like a landslide or melting ice. There is no such thing as “bamboo” and “tile” being two “weapons”, when “bamboo splits”, it “inherents potential energy so it releases energy, creating great force”; while “tile breaks” it “shoots into many pieces” and “causes widespread injury” as explained by the author of Idioms in Pictures.

Man Nong (Contributor)

Reference: Vietnamese Dictionary (Hoang Phe, editor - Vietlex) explains the literal and figurative meanings of “Split bamboo, broken tiles” as “because the army is strong, wherever they attack, the enemy army will disintegrate [like the bamboo splitting move ‘split through a few joints, the whole next section will split open’ and the roof tile breaking move ‘just remove a few tiles and the other tiles will automatically fall down’]”. Accordingly, the literal meaning of “split bamboo” is correct, while “broken tiles” is incorrect. Because in reality, when roofing tiles, “the upper layer presses the lower layer”, each tile has a hook to the purlin, there is no way that “just remove a few tiles and the other tiles will automatically fall down”.

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/nghia-den-cua-thanh-ngu-nbsp-truc-che-ngoi-tan-268014.htm