📖 Meaning
To change and transform prevailing customs and social mores. It refers to reforming entrenched societal habits and traditions, typically through moral leadership or governance. The idiom emphasizes the difficulty and importance of shifting a people's cultural climate.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the 'Biography of He Yin' in the Book of Liang (《梁书·何胤传》), a dynastic history of the Southern Liang dynasty compiled by Yao Silian. He Yin was a learned Confucian scholar who withdrew from official life, and the passage laments that in a declining age of deception and strife, altering the prevailing customs and shifting the cultural wind was no easy task. The text reflects the Confucian ideal that virtuous governance should reform social mores, while acknowledging the practical difficulty of doing so.
💡 Example Usage
要改俗迁风，非一朝一夕之功，须从教育入手。
To transform customs and shift social mores is not the work of a single day; it must begin with education.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 改俗迁风
- Pinyin: gǎi sú qiān fēng
- Literal Translation: change, custom, move, wind
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4