Often China & Japan Related.
成语, cheng2yu3, are Chinese idioms. They always have four characters and can have extremely complex meanings. There are some that have similar equivalent English idioms. But most do not. Also, all chengyu’s are idioms but not all idioms are chengyu. Chengyu’s are often used by Chinese people in casual speech and every time I learn one I start to hear it pretty frequently. They are also the reason that my Chinese friends are constantly asking me for common used idioms in English. Sadly for them, I can almost never think of any good ones that I actually use on a daily basis. Chris and I have a dictionary with thousands of idioms in it. They can be used to describe just about anything. Both of us love the dictionary.
Today I found this chengyu which accurately describes how I feel about the people who set a dog and her puppies on fire in Nanjing on Wednesday: 惨不忍闻, can3 bu4 ren3 wen1. This one basically has the meaning that something is too horrible to hear or learn about. I am able to deal with a lot of bad things, but I have a difficult time with cruelty to animals. A really difficult time.