







不见棺材不下泪 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to remain stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge a dire situation or change one's ways until faced with undeniable and critical evidence; to refuse to give up until one is at a point of no return”. Literally, “Not see coffin, not shed tears”.
Once upon a time, there was a humorous and witty scholar named An Hongjian, who was famously afraid of his strict wife. One day, his father-in-law passed away, and the couple set off to attend the funeral. On the way, they both began to wail loudly.
His wife, noticing that her husband was crying without shedding any tears, found it strange and asked him why. An Hongjian quickly replied that he had wiped them away with a handkerchief. His wife, still stern, specifically instructed him that he must shed tears when they saw the coffin.

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Open the tool →不见棺材不下泪 (bù jiàn guān cái bù xià lèi) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to remain stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge a dire situation or change one's ways until faced with undeniable and critical evidence; to refuse to give up until one is at a point of no return”.
不见棺材不下泪 is pronounced bù jiàn guān cái bù xià lèi in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 不见棺材不下泪 means “not see coffin, not shed tears”. It is used to mean “to remain stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge a dire situation or change one's ways until faced with undeniable and critical evidence; to refuse to give up until one is at a point of no return”.
不见棺材不下泪 comes from a classical Chinese story dating back to ancient China. The full story is on this page.
比喻不到走投无路的境地不肯死心。