This idiom is a succinct way to express that a person is preoccupied to the point of forgetting to eat or drink. It is used as an adjective to describe a person's
emotional state. While it is not tied to a specific emotion, it generally describes situations where a person is grieving, stressed, busy, or upset. To use this phrase
in verb form, simply reorder the characters to get 不思茶饭 (bù-sī-chá-fàn). This idiom is interchangeable with the related idiom 茶饭无心 (chá-fàn-wú-xīn), which translates
literally as "no heart for tea or rice".
This idiom is a succinct way to express that a person is preoccupied to the point of forgetting to eat or drink. While it is not tied to a specific emotion, it
usually describes situations where a person is grieving, stressed, busy, or upset.
李荣浩 - 耳朵
Ronghao Li - Er Duo (Ear)
茶饭不思呆呆的凝望着
Cháfàn-bùsī dāidāi de níngwàngzhe
Staring blankly, with no appetite
In this lyric, the idiom is used to describe the singer's melancholy feelings. In the context of the song, he has been left by someone he loved and misses them very much. He is unable
to focus on anything because of how abandoned he feels, and doesn't even think about eating food.