長安居大不易
cháng'ān​jū​dà​bù​yì

life is hard in the big city

  • created sense approved 长安居大不易/長安居大不易 · cháng'ān​jū​dà​bù​yì · life is hard in the big city — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    长安居大不易 / 長安居大不易

    cháng'ān​jū​dà​bù​yì

    life is hard in the big city

    (literary) it is not easy to live in the capital; a metaphor for the high cost of living in a large city. This expression originates from a pun on the name of the Tang poet [[白居易|白居易|bai2 ju1 yi4]], to whom it was said that living in the capital Cháng'ān was not easy (bù yì).

    长安 (literal) → 长安/長安 · cháng'ān · Chang'an 居 (literal) → 居 · jū · to reside 大 (literal) → 大 · dà · greatly 不易 (literal) → 不易 · bù​yì · not easy

    Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

    created sense