狗尾續貂　(gǒu wěi xù diāo)

Wagging the Dog

In English, there are many sayings associated with dogs, such as “die like a dog,” “in the doghouse” and “it’s a dog’s life.” In Chinese, there is also a popular saying relating to this animal and it has to do with its tail.

The Chinese idiom Gou Wei Xu Diao, or “substituting dog’s tail for sable” grew out of a fierce and complex power struggle in the court of the Western Jin Dynasty (265-316 AD).

When Sima Yan became the first emperor of the Western Jin Dynasty, he granted titles and territories to a large number of nobles. This was because the new emperor believed such measures would encourage these nobles to help consolidate his rule and pay hefty tribute to the imperial court.

But actually, the emperor’s decision later led to widespread separatism, furious factional strife and continuous power struggle.

After Sima Yan died in 290 AD, the power struggle in the imperial court escalated out of control and, in less than 10 years, the throne changed hands several times.

Members and relatives of the royal family all seemed to be involved in some sort of dirty plotting or even cold-blooded murders in order to seize power and rake in money for themselves.

In 300 AD, Sima Lun, who was then in control of the royal army, staged a successful coup and named himself the new ruler. Like the first emperor of the dynasty, Sima Lun granted titles to several thousands of his followers. As a result, the court soon ran out of the supply of official seals needed for all those appointments and even the sable fur which was used to decorate the hats of royal officers was in shortage.

To solve this unexpected problem, the emperor decided to use white-painted wooden plates to substitute for metal seals and dog tails to replace the fur of sable. People immediately began to ridicule the makeshift insignias of the imperial court by coining the phrase “substituting sable with dog tails.”

Although the Western Jin Dynasty was both ill-fated and short-lived, it did leave behind a lasting legacy as the saying about “dog tails” still lives on in the Chinese language today.

This idiom is now used most often to criticize those who create a deplorable sequel to a masterpiece.