"Pi Zhi Bu Cun" (When the skin is gone) comes from the Zuo Zhuan, Duke Xi, Fourteenth Year. The original text reads, "When the skin is gone, where can the hair attach itself?" It is a metaphor meaning that when a thing loses the foundation upon which it depends for survival, it cannot exist by itself. Here "skin" refers to the foundation or root, while "hair" refers to things that depend on the foundation. This idiom emphasizes the importance of the foundation and is often used to explain that if the fundamental conditions no longer exist, then the secondary things that depend on them also lose their meaning. In emotional coloring, it often carries a tone of warning, admonition, or regret, reminding people to value the foundation and not to pursue the trivial while neglecting the essential. It is widely used in discussions of the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure, between personal ability and platform, and between health and career. In terms of cultural background, it reflects the ideas in traditional Chinese culture of "when the root is firm, the state is peaceful" and "valuing the fundamental and restraining the secondary," emphasizing that only when the roots are solid can the branches and leaves flourish.
📝 Example
1. If all the companies go bankrupt, the welfare of us employees will be like "hair attached to a skin that no longer exists" — with no foundation, nothing that depends on it can survive.
2. The ecological environment is the skin; no matter how fast the economy develops, it will ultimately lose its support if the skin no longer exists — when the root is gone, nothing else can be sustained.