All in all, the geographical difference leads to different idioms in the two languages. Take the other instance, in southern China ,with mild and moisture weather, people are familiar with bamboo, so they choose the idiom ‘雨后春笋’ to stand for the new things cropping up in great numbers. Correspondingly, English have the idiom ‘spring up like mushrooms’ to tell the same meaning. An another example, to describe an nondescript thing, using “neither fish or fowl“ in English while ‘非驴非马’ in Chinese .
从文化差异的角度浅谈英汉习语的翻译(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_66244.html