刻舟求剑 the story is about a person in a boat dropped his sword into the river.and then he thought he just need to mark on the place on the boat where his sword is dropped, then when the boat pulled over, he could just jumped from the place with the mark on into the river to get his sword back...but he didn't think of the boat is moving, and the mark can't guide him to find his sword anymore. so it describe that someone is not flexible, just follow the rules,,and don't adapt himself to a certain circumstances,,,don't act according to the surroundings...when dealing with problems here these characters mean: 刻： make a mark on a surface of a object 舟： a small bot 求：find 剑：sword

是刻舟求剑的故事。最好先看原文: 《吕氏春秋·察今》: “人有涉江者，其剑自舟中坠于水，遽契其舟，曰：“是吾剑之所坠。”舟止，从其所契者入水求之。舟已行矣，而剑不行，求剑若此，不亦惑乎？以此故法为其国，与此同。时已徙矣，而法不徙，以此为治，岂不难哉！ " 1. The original commentary is "时已徙矣，而法不徙，以此为治，岂不难哉！ " In English, this is "Times have changed but his method has remained static. Isn't it extremely difficult to govern a country with this mentality?" 2. The moral of the story is not simplistically "Be flexible", but actually, "Move with the times, and act with situational wisdom." 3. We need not stop there and be restricted by the original commentary. Just as each generation re-interprets Shakespeare afresh, to give it renewed life, we may and should interpret this with today's wisdom. The story encourages us to be SENSITIVE to and OBSERVANT of objective reality, to be ANALYTICAL of facts, and to be UP TO DATE with modern solutions, including science and technology. Those of us who are completely bilingual in Chinese and English, understanding both 文言 and 白话, reading both 正体字 and 简体字, are so fortunate, because we really benefit from both cultures. That is the result of a good education, and whichever system that produces these types of students is a truly great system indeed. The beauty is that these education systems are found in many countries across the world. One can learn perfect Chinese whether one goes to the University of London or Harvard.

This is a classic proverb. The boat in the river refers to the circumstance, while the mark the person made on the boat refers to a certain rule or guideline. But the circumstance is changing, the guideline is not useful any more. If the person still follows the guideline, he cannot resolve the problem which is finding the sword in this story.

1. Story There was a man from the state of Chu who was crossing a river. His sword fell from the boat into the river. He quickly made a notch on the boat saying, "This is the place where my sword fell in. When the boat stops, I will go into the water and search for my sword from the spot where I made the notch." The boat was already moving, but the sword had not moved. Is it not suspect to search for the sword in this manner? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%88%BB%E8%88%9F%E6%B1%82%E5%8A%8D http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/cha-jin/ens 《吕氏春秋· 慎大览· 察今》 2.Question -- 这个故事形容只会刻板地遵守规则，不懂变通的人。 Describe somebody who only rigidly sticks to/observes fixed(traditional) rules and doesn't learn to accommodate to/adapt to new situations.

这是刻舟求剑的成语故事吧 。The story describes the kind of people who are inflexible ,don't know how to solve a certain problem in a workable way.