“Bed of roses” as in: “Life as a foreign student here is not a bed of roses
Close your eyes and visualize a bed, king/queen-sized if you please, fully covered with rose petals.
Now, imagine the same bed, this time, full of twigs and thorns.
Naturally you prefer hanging onto that bed of roses. That picture is, well, a rosy picture, one that exudes peace, ease, comfort and, of course, happiness.
And when the foreign student says that life is not a bed of roses, he means to say that life here is not all smooth and easy, but with struggles and hardships – what with the language barrier, different food and culture shock in general.
Bon Jovi, I recall, sang a song of the same title (Bed of Roses) back in the 1990s in which he sings instead of a “bed of roses”, he sleeps in a “bed of nails”:
I want to lay you down in a bed of roses.
For tonight I sleep on a bed of nailsI want to be just as close as the Holy Ghost is.
And lay you down on a bed of rosesBed of roses the phrase, by the way, was coined in the 16th century by Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of William Shakespeare. In the poem Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Marlowe wrote:
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtleWell, enjoy your bed of roses everyone. That is, enjoy them while they last because nature has a way to even thing out. And so, hang onto your bed of roses the best you can and avoid the “bed of nails” in the Bon Jovi song.
Pancake people煎饼人
With the development of the Internet and other sources of instantaneous information, many people strive to gain at least a working knowledge of many different subjects. They are so-called “pancake people”, they no longer concentrate their energies on one area of interest, but instead choose to spread themselves thinly over a large area. As a result, a new generation of pancake people have essentially become the proverbial Jacks of all trades, but masters of none.
The term “pancake people” is largely seen as a negative commentary on the current age of instantaneous information. The ability to access even the most obscure information in a matter of seconds may be seen as a positive social development on one level, but it can also cause some people to become less inclined to delve more deeply into one particular subject of interest. As a result, a generation of overloaded pancake people may become more obsessed with popular culture and less interested in the larger arc of human history