lit. to penetrate into a bull's horn (idiom) / fig. to waste time on an insoluble or insignificant problem / to bash one's head against a brick wall / a wild goose chase / a blind alley / to split hairs
Zuo Zhuan or Tsochuan, Mr Zuo's Annals or Mr Zuo's commentary on 春秋[Chun1 qiu1], early history c. 400 BC attributed to famous blind historian Zuo Qiuming 左丘明[Zuo3 Qiu1 ming2]
blind people touch an elephant (idiom, from Nirvana sutra 大般涅槃經|大般涅盘经[da4 ban1 Nie4 pan2 jing1]) / fig. unable to see the big picture / to mistake the part for the whole / unable to see the wood for the trees
Chinese character dictionary (containing entries for single characters, contrasted with a 詞典|词典[ci2 dian3], which has entries for words of one or more characters) / (coll.) dictionary / CL:本[ben3]
lanes and alleys / neighborhood / lane neighborhoods in parts of Shanghai, with modified Chinese courtyard houses, occupied by single families in the 1930s, now crowded with multiple families
single-character headword (in a dictionary) / first character of a Chinese word / the top part (esp. a radical) of a Chinese character / the initial of a Chinese syllable
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