猪八戒照镜子——里外不是人

He tried to please his mother by coming home for the holiday. His wife is angry he missed the trip with her family. His mother is angry he brought his wife. His wife is angry he defended his mother. Whatever he does next will be wrong to someone.

猪八戒照镜子——里外不是人. Pigsy looking in the mirror — neither side is a person.

猪八戒照镜子——里外不是人 Meaning: A Quick Definition

• Literal meaning: Zhu Bajie (the half-pig, half-human disciple of the monk Tang Sanzang in Journey to the West) looks in the mirror. His reflection shows a pig — not a person on the outside. But Zhu Bajie himself is a pig spirit — not a person on the inside either. Both sides fail the test.
• Figurative meaning: Being caught in a position where you cannot satisfy anyone. Whatever you do will be wrong. You have become the problem to both sides.
• Tone: Comic (the image of Zhu Bajie is inherently funny), but the meaning is rueful. Often used in self-deprecation about one’s own impossible situation.
• Modern usage: Family politics, workplace conflict, diplomatic positions, parent-teacher disputes, anything where you are the meat in the sandwich.
• English equivalents: “Between a rock and a hard place,” “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” “catch-22,” “no way to win.”

In one line: 猪八戒照镜子——里外不是人 names the impossible position where no choice satisfies anyone.

The Characters

• 猪 (zhū) 八 (bā) 戒 (jiè): Zhu Bajie, the pig spirit. One of the three disciples of the monk Tang Sanzang in the Ming-dynasty novel Journey to the West (《西游记》). He is famously gluttonous, lustful, lazy, and comic.
• 照 (zhào) 镜 (jìng) 子 (zi): To look in a mirror
• 里 (lǐ) 外 (wài): Inside and outside
• 不 (bù) 是 (shì) 人 (rén): Is not a person

This is a 歇后语 (xiēhòuyǔ) — a two-part allegorical saying. The first part (猪八戒照镜子) is the image; the second part (里外不是人) is the meaning. Often the second part is left unsaid, with the speaker trusting the listener to fill it in.

Where It Comes From

The saying draws on Zhu Bajie (猪八戒), one of the most beloved characters in Chinese literature. He is a pig spirit who accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang on the pilgrimage to India in Journey to the West (《西游记》), the Ming Dynasty novel (c. 16th century) by Wu Cheng’en.

Zhu Bajie’s defining feature is his ambiguous ontological status. He was once a marshal in heaven. He was punished for flirting with the moon goddess and reborn as a pig-human hybrid. He walks on two legs, talks, eats human food, and lusts after women — but he has a pig’s snout, pig’s ears, a pig’s belly, and a pig’s appetites. He is, in other words, neither fully pig nor fully human, and the mirror makes this failure undeniable.

The 歇后语 form crystallized in vernacular speech sometime in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) and became a common phrase in 20th-century Mandarin. It is now used throughout Chinese-speaking regions.

The Philosophy

The Trap of Dual Failure

The proverb isolates a specific kind of dilemma: not just “I cannot satisfy both sides” but “I have already failed both sides by being in this position.” Zhu Bajie does not get to choose between being a pig and being a person. The mirror has already rendered its verdict. He is neither. The choice was made for him, long before he looked.

This is more fatalistic than the Western “rock and a hard place.” In the Western phrase, you still have a choice — it is just a bad one. In 猪八戒照镜子, the choice has already collapsed. The mirror is just the moment of recognition.

The Comic Dimension of Impossible Situations

What makes the proverb distinctly Chinese is its use of a comic literary character to name an uncomic situation. Zhu Bajie is funny. He is the lovable failure of the Journey to the West crew, the one who always wants to eat and nap and go home. Watching him look in the mirror and discover he is not a person is intrinsically comic — even though the meaning of the proverb is not.

This combination of comic image and rueful meaning is a recurring feature of Chinese folk wisdom. The image softens the meaning; the meaning deepens the image. You can laugh at the proverb while also acknowledging that it describes your own life exactly.

The Mirror as Revelation

The mirror in this proverb functions like the dragon in 叶公好龙 or the falling sky in 杞人忧天: an external reality-test that arrives uninvited and renders its verdict. Zhu Bajie presumably knew, on some level, that he was not a person. The mirror forces him to know it visibly, irrefutably, with both eyes open.

This is what the proverb is really about: the moment you cannot pretend anymore. The mirror is the empirical test, and it has found you wanting from every direction.

When Chinese Speakers Use It

Scenario 1: Family dilemma

“My mother wants me to bring the baby. My wife wants me to leave the baby with her mother. Whatever I do, someone is furious.”

“Zhū bājiè zhào jìng zi — lǐ wài bù shì rén. Welcome to the sandwich generation.”

Scenario 2: Workplace politics

“My team wants me to push back on leadership. Leadership wants me to deliver the message to my team. I do either, I lose the other side.”

“Zhū bājiè zhào jìng zi.”

Scenario 3: Naming diplomatic impossibility

“Whatever the country does, one ally will be angry. The other ally will also be angry. There is no position that satisfies everyone.”

“Zhū bājiè zhào jìng zi.”

In Western Culture

The closest Western parallels:

• “Between a rock and a hard place” — captures the two-bad-options structure but lacks the comic image.
• “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” — captures the no-win logic, but abstractly.
• “Catch-22” — captures the structural impossibility, but bureaucratic rather than comic.
• “No way to win” — flat and colorless.
• “The meat in the sandwich” — captures being trapped between two sides, with mild comic imagery.

The Chinese proverb has the strongest literary resonance of any of these, because it invokes one of the most beloved characters in Chinese fiction. The image of Zhu Bajie at the mirror is a scene from a story you already know.

Tattoo Advice

Not recommended.

Like other mockery proverbs, 猪八戒照镜子 reads as self-accusation when inked. A Chinese viewer would interpret it as a confession of permanent failure to satisfy anyone — funny as a T-shirt, less funny as a tattoo.

If you want a tattoo that captures Zhu Bajie himself — the lovable gluttonous pig spirit — just get an image of him. He is one of the most recognizable figures in Chinese art and is a perfectly fine tattoo subject on his own.