| 词汇 | chinaman-s chance |
| 词源 | Chinaman’s chance. The Chinese immigrants who built so many miles of American railroads often tried to make their fortune by working old claims and streams abandoned by white prospectors during the California gold rush of 1849. They had an extremely poor chance of finding any gold in such aban- doned claims, and thus a Chinaman’s chance came to mean “no chance at all.” The poor lot of Chinese in a segregated society probably reinforced the phrase, for the Chinese had as poor a chance on the railroads and other places as they did in the gold fields. |
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