What a great article. I loved the Chinese idiom too (or whatever you call those four-character things). It's funny, I was watching a video on this today: http://www.wimp.com/getfit/
That made me feel a bit more realistic about life. :-)
Those idioms are called "chengyu" (成语) and there are hundreds (or thousands) of them. Some of them come from ancient Chinese stories and poems and are pretty allegorical in nature; others, like (seemingly) the one mentioned in the article, are self-explanatory (to a Chinese speaker).
That made me feel a bit more realistic about life. :-)