📖 Meaning
As circumstances change, one's feelings and attitudes shift accordingly. It describes how emotional states and perspectives naturally evolve in response to changing situations. The idiom is a variant of the more common 情随事迁.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of 情随事迁, which originates from the celebrated preface '兰亭集序' (Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion) written by the Eastern Jin dynasty calligrapher Wang Xizhi in 353 CE. In the original text, Wang reflects on how people's feelings change as circumstances shift over time, expressing a melancholic awareness of life's transience. The variant 情逐事迁 substitutes 逐 (to follow, pursue) for 随 (to accompany, go along with), conveying essentially the same meaning with a slightly more active sense of emotions being drawn along by events.
💡 Example Usage
多年过去，情逐事迁，他对故乡的思念已淡了许多。
Years passed and, as circumstances changed and feelings shifted along with them, his longing for his hometown gradually faded.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 情逐事迁
- Pinyin: qíng zhú shì qiān
- Literal Translation: feeling, follow, affairs, change
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4