kùn nan
difficult
challenging
straitened circumstances
difficult situation
Yú Shì nán
Yu Shi'nan (558-638), politician of Sui and early Tang periods, poet and calligrapher, one of Four Great Poets of early Tang 唐初四大家[Tang2 chu1 Si4 Da4 jia1]
Táng chū Sì Dà jiā
Four Great Poets of early Tang
refers to Yu Shi'nan 虞世南[Yu2 Shi4 nan2], Ouyang Xun 陽歐詢|欧阳询[Ou1 yang2 Xun2], Chu Suiliang 楮遂良[Chu3 Sui4 liang2] and Xue Ji 薛稷[Xue1 Ji4]
yì jué kùn nan
to find sth increasingly difficult