鹹魚翻身

See also: 咸鱼翻身

Chinese
salted fish; zombie to turn over; to double over; to turn around
trad. (鹹魚翻身) 鹹魚 翻身
simp. (咸鱼翻身) 咸鱼 翻身
variant forms 鹹魚翻生／咸鱼翻生

Etymology

From 鹹魚返生／咸鱼返生 (haam4 jyu4-2 faan1 saang1), originally a Cantonese fishermen's saying, literally “the salted fish becomes alive again”.

The Cantonese-specific word 返生 (faan1 saang1, “to be brought back to life”) was changed to the similar-sounding word 翻身 (fānshēn, “to turn over the body”) when it spread to other varieties of Chinese. Hence this seemingly paradoxical saying (“salted fish turns its body over”, i.e. still a salted fish).

Pronunciation

Idiom

鹹魚翻身

  1. to be successful when it seems one would absolutely be a failure; to become a changed man; the underdog achieves success; Someone, who is at the lowest point in their career etc. and deemed by everyone to be impossible to achieve anything, gets a chance to be successful again due to their hard work, luck, or other reasons.
    鹹魚翻身還是鹹魚 [MSC, trad.]
    咸鱼翻身还是咸鱼 [MSC, simp.]
    xiányú fānshēn háishì xiányú [Pinyin]
    even if the underdog becomes the overdog, he is still a dog
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