learn mandarin hong kong – Chinese classical story -A Haven of Peace and Happiness

Mandarin Lesson

  Tao Yuanming, a famous writer of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, wrote the well-known essay Peach-Blossom Spring. In it he tells a story which goes like this: A fisherman happened to come upon a place called Peach-Blossom Spring. Squeezing through a cave, he found a village, the residents of which were descendants of refugees from the Qin Dynasty. It was a paradise isolated from the outside world, without exploitation or oppression, and everybody living and working in peace and contentment. The fisherman left the villagers and went home. But he could never find the place again.

 This idiom is derived from the above story, and is used to mean an isolated, ideal world.

世外桃源   
東晉的文學家陶淵明寫了一片著名的文章叫《桃花源記》。敘述一個漁人出外捕魚的時候,偶然來到了桃花源這個地方。從這里通過一個山洞,發現了一個村子,這裡的居民是秦朝時避難人的後代。這是一個與世隔絕、沒有剝削和壓迫、人人安居樂業的美好社會。漁人告別村民回家以後,再也找不到這個地方了。 
後來,由這個故事產生了“世外桃源”這個成語,用來比喻與世隔絕的、理想的美好世界。