A Broken Mirror Was Reunited

A Broken Mirror Was Reunited

Characters:

Pronunciation: po(4) jing(4) chong(2) yuan(2)
Explanation: A metaphor to say a separated couple comes together again

Tone: Positive

The Story: In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Prime Minister of North Zhou killed his emperor and set up the Sui Dynasty. Later he began to attack another kingdom, the Southern Chen.

There was an officer named Xu Deyan in Southern Chen--his wife was the king's sister, Princess Lechang. When his country was nearly defeated, Xu had to leave his wife. He divided a mirror into 2 parts, and gave half to his wife and said: "If we both survive until the next festival of lanterns, then we two can go to the capital of Sui and then we can find each other."

Southern Chen was soon occupied by Sui and Princess Lechang became a captive and was sent to the emperor's uncle, Yang Su, as a lady-in-waiting. Xu yearned to see his wife and he went to the capital of Sui on the promised date. By searching, he saw an old man was selling a half mirror, and it was just the part that fit into his section! How fortunate!

He asked the old man questions and found that his wife was a handmaiden in Yang Su's house--he thought they had no hope to see each other. Then he wrote a poem in the mirror to show his love and sorrow and asked the old man to hand it to his wife. When Princess Lechang read the poem, she could not help but cry. How sad!

Later, Yang Su learned the whole story, he sympathized for the couple and sent the Princess back to Xu's arm. The couple had a happy reunion at last.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Zhe(4) ge(4) nan(2) ren(2) zhong(1) yu(2) hui(2) dao(4) le qi(1) zi(3) na(4) li(3). Ta(1) men(2) po(4) jing(4) chong(2) yuan(2) le.

Usage Example (English translation): A broken mirror was reunited, and we celebrated the man's return to his wife.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.