Falling After Sun Shan
Characters: |
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Pronunciation:
ming (2) luo(4) sun(1) shan(1)
Explanation:
Describe a failure in an examination or contest.
The Story: In the Song Dynasty, there
was a scholar named Sun Shan in Suzhou. He
was humorous and people called him a Humorous
Scholar. One year, Sun Shan went to take the
imperial civil examination with the son of
one of his friends. When the list of the successful
candidates was published, Sun Shan found the
man's son was not in the list while his name
was at the end of the list. On arriving home,
the friend asked Sun Shan if his son passed
the exam. Sun Shan told him two lines of improvisational
verse: "Sun Shan is at the end of the
list. And your son is behind Sun Shan".
The man knew his son did not pass the exam
and then left sorrowfully.
Usage
Example (Pinyin): Sui(1) ran(2) ming(2)
luo(4) sun(1) shan(1), ta(1) bing(4) mei(2)
you(3) sang(4) shi(1) xin(4) xin(1).
Usage
Example (English translation): He did
not lose his confidence, even though the exam
made him 'fall after Sun Shan'.
Note:
The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4
spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create
those above where after each syllable we tell
you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond
to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to
complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms
newsletter with a good offline study program.
