Much of any culture can be linked back to eating and food, food and care, eating and language. To eat one's feelings, to eat dust, words, to eat your own heart out, to eat someone else alive, to eat your cake and have it too, things that are adorable (puppies, babies) that are said to be good enough to eat, to have someone else eat out of the palm of your hand, to be chewed out, a dog-eat-dog world. Chinese isn't any different from English in this way. Ch for "eat," and ch s, to only eat vegetables, but also, colloquially, to be a pushover. Ch c, to eat vinegar or be jealous. Ch l, to eat effort, as for a task that is very strenuous. To eat surprise, to be amazed, ch j ng. To be completely full or ch bo fn, and thus to have nothing better to do. To eat punishment or get the worst of it, ch ku. And, most important, to eat hardship, suffering, and pain, ch k, a defining Chinese quality, to be able to bear a great deal without showing a crack.

Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang