📖 Meaning
Refers to the lonely and melancholy feeling of being stranded far from home on a rainy autumn night. It describes the homesickness and isolation experienced by a traveler separated from loved ones. The phrase evokes a scene of relentless rain in a distant land that deepens one's longing for home.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from a famous poem by the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin titled 'Night Rain Written Northward' (夜雨寄北). Li Shangyin was stranded in the Ba Mountains of present-day Sichuan during the autumn rains, far from his wife. The poem imagines a future reunion by the west window where the couple would trim candles together and reminisce about this very rainy night in the Ba Mountains, turning present sorrow into a shared memory of longing.
💡 Example Usage
独居旅馆，听窗外巴山夜雨，更添几分思乡之情。
Staying alone in an inn, listening to the night rain outside the window, my homesickness only deepened.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 巴山夜雨
- Pinyin: bā shān yè yǔ
- Literal Translation: Ba mountain, night rain
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4