Said by Xie An, a poet in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
Commentary: "What is this snow like?" "This is almost equivalent to sprinkling salt in the air." "It's better than blowing catkins all over the sky."
This is an eternal story, which shows Xie Daowen's outstanding poetic talent, meticulous observation of things and flexible imagination.
According to the Book of Jin Xie's Family Biography and Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Xie An tasted the default in the snowy day and told his children the meaning of paper. Suddenly, the heavy snow suddenly fell, and Ann sang a rhyme. His brother and daughter Lang sang a song (poem as above), and Ann laughed.
Xie An's joy lies in the fact that the skirt hairpin does not let people, and the niece's poem is above the nephew. According to Xie Lang's rare literary title, Shi Shuo Xin Yu quoted Xu Jinyang Qiu as saying that he was "gentle", while literature quoted Zhongxing Shu as saying that he was "knowledgeable". So my uncle rhymes and my nephew is a chorus, which shows that he has a quick mind. In all fairness, "sprinkling salt in the air" can also be regarded as a analogy. Snow floated down with its white crystal, and Xie Lang made an analogy nearby and painted it in the air without salt. Although not smart, but also poor beyond description.
However, the clever sister is not superstitious about her brother's talent. She thinks it's good to imitate snow with salt, but she doesn't use six petals to describe the basic characteristics of snowflakes, which dance with the wind, surging and endless. Therefore, in view of her brother's original sentence, she made a bold amendment: "If catkins are not due to the wind."
Catkin, as a kind of spring scenery, has the characteristics of flowers, rising with the wind, drifting without roots and flying all over the sky. Liu Hua Fu, edited by Jin Wu, once described: "Flowers are flying in the snow, or the wind is back and swimming thin, or the fog is chaotic and flying, the wild is clean and dirty, and everything is colorful and bright." Xie Daowen compared this to the north wind with snow all over the sky, which is really appropriate. Catkin is bigger than its words, pointing out the scene of "sudden heavy snow" at that time, and "because of the wind" pointing out its natural characteristics of dancing with the wind and rambling. (Zhu He's Jade Case in Song Dynasty has a phrase "Wind in the City". Compared with this, catkins are different and interesting. Look at the metaphor of "sprinkling salt in the air" again, and it will be embarrassing.