Chinese idiom · 成语
长袖善舞
Meaning
Long sleeves excel in dance; leveraging advantages skillfully.
Character by character
Origin and story
Proverb in classical argumentThe Han Feizi's Wudu chapter cites a proverb pairing long sleeves for dancing with abundant money for trading. It explains that ample resources make skilled performance easier. The sleeves are a dancer's useful equipment, just as capital gives a merchant room to act; there is no named dancer whose success created the idiom.
The text already calls this a popular saying, so it should not be dated merely as a Han-dynasty invention. Later use also describes someone adept at social relationships, maneuvering, and getting things done through connections. That social sense may be admiring or carry a suggestion of opportunism.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
他长袖善舞，很快就把几家原本互不相识的公司联系起来。
Skilled at building connections, he quickly brought several previously unconnected companies together.
Here it describes social resourcefulness; context can make the expression critical.