Chinese Idiom：青出于蓝 (qīng chū yú lán)

During the Northern Dynasties Period, there lived a man named Li Mi, who from his youth studied under Kung Fan. Kung Fan was both very knowledgeable and morally upright. He taught his students to be conscientious and responsible. Before each lecture, he would first thoroughly research his subject, and then teach his students everything that he knew. He had very high hopes for his students, especially in the area of morality, and controlled them very rigidly. So his students all had high respect for him. Li Mi was an extremely intelligent and hardworking student. He not only memoized everything the teacher taught him, but because he studied very intensively, he learned many new things. Several years late, he knew even more than his teacher.

From then on, whenever Kung Fan had a problem, he would go ask Li Mi for advice. This made
Li Mi very uncomfortable, so his teacher used a phrase of Shum-tz "Indigo blue is extracted from the indigo plant" - as a metaphor for a student surpassing his teacher. (This is because the color, indigo blue, is a more beautiful shade of blue than the plant from which it is extracted.)

The meaning of this idiom, then, is that "the student has become better than the teacher."


子璠是北朝一位著名的老师，学识品德都很好，教学既认真又负责；他门下有一个学生李谧，不但聪明又肯用功，老师教的课业，他不但一一加以熟读，并且能够举一反三、融会贯通成为自己的思想。时间一久，李谧有许多精辟透彻的见解都超过了老师。

有一次孔璠向李谧请敎一个问题，李谧心想老师怎么反过来向我请教呢？因此惶恐得不知如何是好。孔璠很诚恳的对他说：“李谧，不必这样，圣人都没有固定的老 师了，更何况是我们呢！只要有一技之长的，都可以当我的老师，你就不要客气了吧！”这件事后来被传扬出去，大家都非常感动，他们还作出一首曲子，来宣扬孔 璠这对师徒呢！“青成蓝，蓝谢青；师何常，在明经。”意思是说，“青”这种染料是从一种叫“蓝”的草本植物的叶子中提炼出来的，颜色却比蓝更好看。李谧由 于聪明和努力，以致学问高过老师，孔璠却不忌妒，反过来向他请敎问题，由此看来，老师怎么会只有固定的一个人呢？凡是有学问的人，都可以作自己的老师啊！ 其实，“青出于蓝”本来是周朝的荀子说的，他说：“青从蓝取出，却比蓝悦目；冰是水做的，却比水更冷。”后来的人，拿来形容学生的学识超过老师。

青出于蓝 (qīng chū yú lán)
【翻译】Indigo Blue is Extracted From The Indigo Plant.
【释义】荀子用青与蓝、冰与水的关系来比喻学生如果能用功研究学问，坚持不懈地努力，就可以            比他的老师更有成就。
【例句】老师们都希望他们的学生能青出于蓝胜于蓝，做出一番事业。
【近义词】后来居上
【反义词】一代不如一代