"Horse horse tiger tiger"
To do something shoddily, carelessly, or with minimal effort; to do something unwillingly; to do something with difficulty
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Pronunciation for this varies. The Chinese-language dictionaries I have mostly say "mǎ mǎ hǔ hǔ," but one Chinese dictionary and many English dictionaries say "mǎ ma hū hū" or "mǎ mǎ hū hū."
《子夜》(Zǐ Yè), a story written by 茅盾 (Máo Dùn) in 1933
During the Sòng Dynasty (宋, 960 - 1297), there lived a famous painter who had such an unusual and confusing style of painting that many people who viewed his art were left baffled. Once, when he'd just finished drawing a tiger's head, someone came by and asked him to draw a horse. He responded by giving the tiger a horse's body. The visitor asked whether he'd drawn a tiger or a horse, and the painter replied, "Horse horse tiger tiger (马马虎虎)." Understandably, the visitor didn't want the painting, so the painter hung it in the hall.
When his oldest son saw the painting, he asked his father what it was, and the painter replied that it was a tiger. When another son later asked him what he'd painted, and he responded that it was a horse.
Some time later, when the oldest son was out hunting, he mistook a horse for a tiger and killed it, and his father was forced to compensate the owner. Some time after that, the painter's other son stumbled across a tiger, and, thinking it was a horse, he attempted to ride it. The tiger responded by biting him to death. The painter was unspeakably devastated, and he burned the painting that had created all the chaos and wrote a poem in which he blamed himself for the tragedy.