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The beauty of life is within our atmosphere,
minds and hearts. Living a life of comfort,
tranquility and leisure, detaching ourselves from the worldly,
taking delight in doing whatever we want
and enjoying the happiness
are what people pursue to live a better life.
Facing our daily life, there is a Garden of Eden
in everyone's heart.
There was a famous writer,
depicting such a wonderful, and dreamy pastoral
village, resulting in today's idiom.
Welcome to Steven's Chinese Idiom Stories.
To have a good understanding of the Chinese idioms can
help grasp the essence of the Chinese language and
discover the Chinese history and taste the Chinese culture.
Today I'm going to teach you this idiom "The Lost Paradise"
This idiom is used to describe people's
ideal state of serenity, not affected by
the outside world and a comfortable place to live in.
It can also be used to portray an
extraordinary place, transcending social reality.
The lost Paradise is a synonym for the ideal human life,
similar to the Western Paradise or Heaven.
For thousands of years, many perfectionists seek
to create their own ultimate "Utopia".
This idiom comes from a famous ancient Chinese writer
Tao Yuanming's representative work,
"A Tale of the Peach Blossom Spring".
Tao Yuanming is from the Jin Dynasty.
He was born in AD 365 and passed away in AD 427.
He was from Xunyang Chaishang province,
which is today's Jiujiang Province.
He is the most distinguished poet in literary history,
an essayist and a pastoral poet.
His other representative work is 'Tao Yuan Ming'
which has the inclusion of
"A Tale of the Peach Blossom Spring".
"A Tale of the Peach Blossom Spring", is a prose article,
written beautifully and very dreamy,
it can be said this tale is a classic example of prose writing.
In the year of Taiyuan of the Jin Dynasty,
there lived a man in Wuling Jun who earned
his living by fishing.
One day, he rowed his boat along a stream,
unaware of how far he had gone when all of a sudden,
he found himself in the midst of a
wood full of peach blossoms
The wood extended several hundred footsteps along
both banks of the stream. There were no trees of other kinds.
The lush grass was fresh and beautiful
and peach petals fell in riotous profusion.
The fisherman was so curious that he rowed on,
in hopes of discovering where the trees ended.
At the end of the woods was the fountainhead of the stream.
The fisherman beheld a hill, with a small opening
from which showed a glimmer of light.
He stepped ashore to explore the crevice.
His first steps took him into a passage that accommodated
only the width of one person.
After he made his way through,
it suddenly widened into an open field.
The land was flat and spacious.
There were houses arranged in good order with fertile fields,
beautiful ponds, bamboo groves, mulberry trees
and paths crisscrossing the fields in all directions.
The crowing of *** and the barking of dogs were
within everyone's earshot.
In the fields, the villagers were busy with farm work.
Men and women were dressed like people outside.
All of them, young and old, appeared happy.
They were surprised at seeing the fisherman,
who, being asked where he came from,
answered their every question.
Then they invited him to visit their homes,
killed chickens, and served wine to entertain him.
As the words of his arrival spread,
the entire village turned out to greet him.
They told him that their ancestors had
come to this isolated haven,
bringing their families and the village people,
to escape from the turmoil during the Qin Dynasty
and that from then onwards,
they had been cut off from the outside world.
They were curious to know what dynasty it was now.
They did not know the Han Dynasty,
not to mention the Wei and the Jin dynasties.
The fisherman told them all the things they wanted to know.
They sighed. The villagers offered him one
feast after another. They entertained him with wine
and delicious food. After several days,
the fisherman took his leave.
The village people advised him not
to let others know of their existence.
Once out, the fisherman found his boat
and rowed homeward, leaving marks behind him.
When he came back to the jun,
he reported his adventure to the prefect,
who immediately sent people to look for the place,
with the fisherman as a guide. However,
the marks he had left could no longer be found.
They got lost and could not find the way.
After this story passed on,
many people tried to find such a beautiful place
Liu Ziji of Nanyang jun,
a scholar with a good reputation,
was excited when he heard the fisherman's story.
He devised a plan to find the village,
but it was not carried out.
Liu died soon afterwards, and after his death,
no one else made any attempt to find it.
"A Tale of the Peach Blossom Spring"
is the representative work of Chinese writer, Tao Yuanming.
This article is based on the whereabouts
of a Wuling Fisherman.
Using him as a clue, the writer chronologically
depicts the discovery of paradise,
the fisherman's life inside the utopia,
when he left the place and the bizarre twists
and turns of finding the utopia again.
Combining all these colorful episodes,
the writer illustrated a self-reliant, sufficient
peaceful and quiet society.
In contrast of the reality where the strong beats the weak,
official's corruption and people living in hardships.
This tale implies that the writer aspires to an ideal society
and also reflects his discontent and
criticism of the society back then.
In fact, does this "paradise" really exist?
I think it is inside the writer's spiritual world.
The author had a good heart and mind,
his spirit to pursue good things in life could brew
such a beautiful glass of wine.
The paradise is a comfort to people's
hearts amid their troubled minds.
It can be said that the real value of the "paradise" is a dream,
so that everyone could realize their minds
can be a beautiful paradise,
filled with beauty and enjoyment.
Later this wonderful story evolved into
this idiom "The Lost Paradise",
a metaphor for calm beautiful and
extraordinary heaven.
My friends,
is there a beautiful paradise in your heart?