The doorway [with a net stretched across it] could catch birds
Indicates a home or store with very few visitors
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因主营冬装, 所以夏季通常门可罗雀 | Yīn zhǔ yíng dōngzhuāng, suǒyǐ xiàjì tōngcháng ménkěluóquè
Usually there are no customers during the summer, because they sell winter clothing
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从前，我家总是门庭若市，现在却是门可罗雀了 | Cóngqián, wǒjiā zǒng shì méntíngruòshì, xiànzài què shì ménkěluóquè le
My house always used to be as busy as a marketplace, but now it's desolate
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《史记》(Shǐ Jì), or the famous work "Records of the Grand Historian" by 司马迁 (Sī Mǎ Qiān).
汲黯 (Jí Àn) was an official in the Western Han Dynasty (西汉, 206 BC - 8 AD). He held a large variety of important and powerful posts under different emperors, and because of this, his household always saw frequent and numerous visitors. However, one emperor eventually dismissed him, effectively stripping him of his power and influence — and visitors at his house. One day, 汲黯 was standing in his desolate courtyard when he saw sparrows flying around, and he lamented that with his new lack of visitors he could stretch a net across the doorway to catch the sparrows.
Later, 汲黯 was ordered to return to court, and it wasn't long before his home was bustling with visitors again. The radical difference in when he received visitors drove him to write a few related lines of poetry onto his door.