shēn​zài​cáo​yíng​xīn​zài​hàn

loyal to one's former master

身在曹营心在汉 身在曹營心在漢 shēn​zài​cáo​yíng​xīn​zài​hàn
loyal to one's former master
to remain loyal to a former cause or leader while being forced to work for another, as exemplified by 关羽 guān​yǔ while in the service of 曹操 cáo​cāo
physically here but mentally elsewhere
to be in one place while longing to be somewhere else; to have one's mind on something other than the task at hand

Frequency

Written text
0.124 per million

Sources

Frequency data
BCC Corpus (BLCU)