Origin: Mountain Living Holiday Thinking of Shandong Brothers is one of the masterpieces of Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei.
Original text:
I am a lonely stranger in a strange land, and I miss my family more often during the holidays.
When I think of my brothers' bodies climbing high, I will feel a little regret for not being able to reach me.
Translation:
Being alone is always a bit bleak, and I miss my distant relatives every time I go to the Double Ninth Festival.
I feel sorry for myself when I think of my brothers wearing dogwood to high places.
Extended data
On the Double Ninth Festival, I miss my relatives in my hometown. Wang Wei lives in Zhou Pu, east of Huashan Mountain, so it's called Remembering Shandong Brothers. When he wrote this poem, he was probably seeking fame in Chang 'an. Although the bustling imperial capital was very attractive to young literati who were keen on official career at that time, it was a "foreign land" for a young wanderer after all. The more bustling and lively, the more lonely and helpless the wanderer is in the vast sea of people. The first sentence uses a word "unique" and two words "different", which is sufficient.
My thoughts about my loved ones and my feelings about my lonely situation are all condensed in the word "independence". "Being a stranger in a foreign land" only refers to being a guest in another country, but the artistic effect caused by the word "different" is much stronger than that caused by the general description of being a guest in another country.
In the feudal era dominated by natural economy, there were great differences in customs, languages and living habits in different regions. When you leave your hometown where you have lived for many years and go to a strange place, you will feel that everything is strange and unaccustomed, and you will feel like duckweed floating in a strange place. "Foreign land" and "stranger" are the simple and true expressions of this feeling.
A stranger's homesickness naturally exists on weekdays, but sometimes it doesn't necessarily show up, but once it encounters some kind of catalyst-the most common one is "festival"-it is easy to explode and even uncontrollable. This is the so-called "I miss my relatives twice during the festive season".
Festivals are often a time for family reunion, and many fond memories of hometown scenery are often associated, so it is natural to "miss your family more during festivals". This kind of experience can be said that everyone has it, but before Wang Wei, no poet has successfully expressed it with such plain and highly summarized poems. Once the poet speaks it, it becomes an epigram that can best express the homesickness of the guests.