Practice Makes Perfect 熟能生巧

The Chinese expression 熟能生巧 (shu2 neng2 shang1 qiao3) literally means skill comes from practice and is equivalent to the English proverb practice makes perfect. The Chinese idiom comes from a story about a skilled archer whol lived during the Song Dynasty.

One day when the archer was practicing on the drill ground a large crowd gathered to watch him strut his stuff. He shot so accurately that the on-lookers cheered with excitement and this made the archer feel extremely proud of his skill. But among the crowd there was an old oil peddler. The oil pedler seemed unimpressed and only nodded his head indifferently.The archer asked the oil pedler why he was not impressed. The oil pedler replied:

Your skill is okay, but it is nothing special. Your accuracy is a result of persistent practice, nothing more, nothing less.

The archer then challenged the oil pedler to show his special talent, if any. The old man said nothing. He put his gourd bottle on the ground and covered its mouth with a copper coin that had a hole in the centre. He then scooped out a ladle of oil from another big jar, held it high above the gourd bottle and gently tipped it. A thread of oil trickled down from the ladle and into the gourd bottle through the hole of the coin. The on-lookers stared on with amazement. But the old man said:

This is nothing special, I can do this because I have practiced it a lot.

And with these words, he left.

Both the Chinese idiom and English proverb encapsulate a strong moral regarding the ethic of work. Namely, with hard word and regular practice you can become proficient at almost anything.