呆若木鸡

Origin and story

In Zhuangzi's Mastering Life chapter (達生), Ji Shengzi trains a fighting cock for a ruler. At successive ten-day intervals, he says it is not ready: first it is full of empty aggression, then easily provoked by sounds and appearances, then still too fierce. Finally it remains unchanged when other cocks call and looks like a wooden chicken. Other birds will not face it and turn away.

The stillness originally represents complete training and composure, not a trance or frightened paralysis. The later idiom changes the emphasis to a wooden-looking lack of response, commonly describing someone stunned by surprise or fear. The fable's ending does not require inventing a series of fought victories.