It literally means “you kick away the bowl after finishing the porridge that people serve you in it”. Think of it this way, it’s the end of the month, you are waiting for your paycheck and food is running low in the house. Then a starving beggar/homeless person comes to your house asking for some food. Feeling sorry for him/her, you check in the kitchen and only have a bowl of porridge left, most probably your dinner of the night too, but you bring it to him/her. After slurping all the porridge in that bowl, the homeless person kicks away/throws away the bowl saying that the porridge is plain, you are being stingy for only giving him/her that much, and that he/she deserves a much better treatment than that. Now you know how it feels to meet an “ăn cháo đá bát” person. It most probably means “an ungrateful person”, but the action itself is similar to that of “burning bridges” in English, which we have a Vietnamese version that goes “Qua cầu rút ván” - After you cross the bridge, you take away the planks” (so no-one else can use the bridge anymore).
What do you think about this idiom? Do you have any other Vietnamese idiom that needs explaining? Comment below and I will help you explain it!
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