What to Say on Chu Yi 初一: 10 Must-Know First Day Greetings

Sudden, remarkable success

Literal: One cry startles everyone

King Zhuang of Chu spent three years on the throne issuing no orders at all. An officer put him a riddle about a bird that for three years had neither stirred its wings nor called, and the king answered that though it had not flown, when it flew it would reach the heavens, and though it had not crie...

Achieve immediate success

Literal: Success upon the horse's arrival

The horse (马) arrives (到) and the thing succeeds (成功). It belongs to Yuan drama, where a general's mount reaching the field is the moment the outcome is settled, and the compression is the point: no campaign, no struggle, just arrival and result. Chinese uses it almost entirely as a wish rather than...

Win at the very start; immediate success

Literal: Flag opens, obtain victory

The banners (旗) unfurled (开) and the victory (胜) taken (得). The picture is of an army winning its first engagement of a campaign, on the day the flags come out, so the phrase concerns the beginning rather than the whole. That is what makes it a blessing instead of a report: it is said before somethi...

Smooth sailing; everything going well

Literal: One sail with favorable wind

One (一) sail (帆), the wind (风) following (顺). 顺风 is wind from astern, the condition under which a junk simply goes, and the phrase is a sailor's before it is anyone else's. It survives almost entirely as a wish rather than a description: written on cards, said at departures, and used of a career or ...

Add crucial finishing touch

Literal: Dot dragon's eyes

Zhang Sengyou painted four dragons on a temple wall in Jinling and left them without pupils, saying that if he dotted the eyes they would fly away. Pressed, he dotted two. Thunder split the wall and those two went up into the cloud; the two he had left blind were still there. The account is in Zhang...

Thriving; flourishing

Literal: Flourishing toward prosperity

Tao Yuanming, going home for good, wrote 木欣欣以向荣，泉涓涓而始流 — the trees thriving (欣欣) as they turn toward (向) flourishing (荣), the springs beginning to trickle. 欣 is gladness, so the doubling gives the growth an air of pleasure rather than mere vigour, and the phrase has kept it. Economies, businesses an...

Look happy and content

Literal: Spring wind fills the face

A face (面) filled (满) with spring breeze (春风) — the look of someone whose good humour is visible before they speak. The comparison is to weather rather than to expression: the warmth is taken to be radiating outward rather than performed. It is also written 满面春风, with the halves reversed and the sen...

Hope appears in darkness

Literal: Dark willows bright flowers

This comes from Lu You's Visiting a Village West of the Mountains, of the Southern Song: 山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村 — where the hills fold and the streams double back and there seems to be no road, the willows darken (柳暗) and the flowers brighten (花明), and there is another village. The turn arrives at the mome...

Success comes naturally

Literal: Water comes channel forms

Su Shi wrote it to a friend who was worrying ahead of events: when the water arrives (水到) the channel forms (渠成), there is no need to plan for it in advance. The image is of water finding its own course rather than an engineer cutting one. What the phrase claims is not that effort is unnecessary but...

Autumn wind and dew; autumn scenery

Literal: Golden wind jade dew

Golden (金) wind (风) and jade (玉) dew (露) — the autumn wind and the first cold dew, named in the colours of precious things. Qin Guan's lyric fixed the phrase: 金风玉露一相逢，便胜却人间无数, one meeting in the autumn wind and dew outdoes countless meetings in the ordinary world. He is writing about the Herdboy and...