This proverb literally means "people head towards the top, water runs towards the bottom." The pronunciation is "ren wang gao chu zou, shui wang di chu liu."
First, I want to digress a bit, and say that it is important to note that literal translations do not always sound as good as the original saying, not to mention the fact that the literal translation does not always capture the original intended meaning. Not to worry...this blog exists to fill in the gaps for the imperfect literal translations.
The way I see it, this proverb attempts to observe a general fact about professional careers. In the natural course of things, water runs in conformity to gravity, it runs from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, it runs from the faucet into the bottom of the sink. Likewise, in the natural course of things, people would want, or more strongly, are meant to climb the career ladder to top of their profession.
The purpose of the proverb, I think, is to remind people who are at the bottom of the career ladder or have not yet found jobs that better days are ahead, since in the natural course of things, people always advance.
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