"Troubled waters" originally refers to fish becoming disoriented in murky water due to obstructed vision, making them easier to catch by hand. As an idiom, it metaphorically describes taking advantage of a chaotic situation to seek illegitimate gains while others are too preoccupied or unable to discern clearly. This idiom comes from the twentieth stratagem in The Thirty-Six Stratagems, belonging to the "chaos strategies" in military tactics, emphasizing the active creation or exploitation of confusion to achieve one's goals. In terms of usage, it is often applied to describe opportunistic behavior in political struggles, commercial competition, or daily life. Its emotional tone is pejorative, commonly used to criticize those who resort to unscrupulous and opportunistic means. Culturally, it reflects the emphasis in traditional Chinese wisdom on the strategy of "winning through chaos," but also warns people to be vigilant against opportunistic behavior that may arise amid confusion. The deeper meaning lies in the fact that chaos is both a risk and an opportunity, and the key lies in how one seizes it; however, if used to harm others for personal gain, it violates morality.
📝 Example
1. When the stock market plunged, some lawbreakers fished in troubled waters, spreading false information to profit from the chaos.
2. During the chaotic period of the project handover, he fished in troubled waters and secretly transferred the company's client resources to his own name.