Giving up Eating for Fear of Choking |因噎废食 Yīn yē fèi shí

Once, there was a man who often ate too much and too fast. One day, while eating quickly, a fishbone got stuck in his throat. It was a serious problem! His family called a doctor, but the doctor couldn’t help. Everyone around him was worried but didn’t know what to do. Sadly, the man died from choking.

After this incident, the local official decided to ban eating altogether, thinking that if no one ate, no one could choke. This decision was like giving up on something important just because of a small problem or fear of something going wrong.

This idiom seems to fit the English proverb: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” meaning do not lose the big picture ove a small issue.


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