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To deliberately ignore wrongdoing or misbehavior, often to avoid conflict or responsibility.
上司对员工的错误睁一只眼闭一只眼，导致问题越来越严重。
The supervisor turned a blind eye to the employee's mistakes, allowing the problems to worsen.
父母对孩子的不良习惯睁一只眼闭一只眼，希望他自己改正。
The parents turned a blind eye to their child's bad habits, hoping he would change on his own.
Often implies passive tolerance rather than active approval.
This idiom reflects a cultural emphasis on harmony and avoiding direct confrontation. It is often used critically to describe irresponsible behavior.
Use this idiom when someone deliberately ignores a problem to avoid trouble, not when they are genuinely unaware of it.
The idiom originates from the literal meaning of keeping one eye open and the other closed, symbolizing partial awareness or deliberate inattention. It has been used in Chinese literature since at least the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) to describe situations where people choose to ignore wrongdoing.
Commonly used in social, workplace, or family contexts where someone chooses to overlook minor infractions or undesirable behavior rather than confront it directly.