无颜见江东父老 wú yán jiàn jiāng dōng fù lǎo

too ashamed to face people back home

Word data

HSK Not in HSK
Frequency Unknown

Definitions

  1. 1. (idiom) to be unable to return to one's hometown due to the shame of failure (originally referred to Xiang Yu xiàng yǔ, who chose not to retreat to Jiangdong after his humiliating defeat)

Characters

Character Meaning
not; no; not to have
face; countenance; color
to see; to meet; to appear (to be sth)
river; surname Jiang
east; surname Dong
father
old (of people)