📖 Meaning
The sea turns into mulberry fields, and mulberry fields turn into the sea. It is a metaphor for the immense changes and transformations that occur in worldly affairs over time. It is equivalent to the idiom 桑田沧海.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom shares its origin with 桑田沧海. According to 神仙传 (Biographies of Divine Immortals) by the Jin dynasty scholar 葛洪, the immortal maiden 麻姑 once told 蔡经 that since her last reception of an invitation, she had already witnessed the eastern sea turn into mulberry fields three times. This striking image of seas and farmland endlessly transforming into one another became a vivid metaphor for the vastness of worldly change across the ages.
💡 Example Usage
几百年过去，桑田碧海，当年的繁华小镇如今只剩一片荒凉。
Hundreds of years have passed; seas have turned to mulberry fields, and the once prosperous town is now nothing but desolation.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 桑田碧海
- Pinyin: sāng tián bì hǎi
- Literal Translation: mulberry field, blue sea
- Category: Philosophy
- Characters: 4