打狗還得看主人

1. • lit. when one beats a dog, one must answer to its master (idiom)
2. • fig. before punishing sb, one should consider how that would affect others associated with him

Character by character

• 打(dǎ)a semantically light, transitive verb that is combined with various grammatical objects to form compound verbs and verb-object phrases with a diverse range of meanings
• 狗(gǒu)dog
• 還(hái)still
• 得(děi)have to
• 看(kàn)see
• 主(zhǔ)owner
• 人(rén)person