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一日看尽长安花

一日看盡長安花
yīrìkànjìnChángānhuā
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 in a single day I see all the flowers of Chang'an
  2. 2 the giddy sweep of sudden success
  3. 3 (lit.) in one day, view exhaustively the flowers of Chang'an

Examples

他金榜题名后，真有一日看尽长安花的得意。
Tā jīnbǎng tí míng hòu, zhēn yǒu yī rì kàn jìn Cháng'ān huā de déyì.
After acing the exam, he felt the giddy 'all the flowers of Chang'an in one day' kind of elation.
拿到录取通知那天，她仿佛一日看尽长安花。
Ná dào lùqǔ tōngzhī nà tiān, tā fǎngfú yī rì kàn jìn Cháng'ān huā.
The day her acceptance letter arrived, it was as if she'd seen all the flowers of Chang'an in one day.

Tips

history
From Meng Jiao's (孟郊) Tang-dynasty poem 《登科后》 (After Passing the Imperial Exam). Full couplet: 『春风得意马蹄疾，一日看尽长安花』— 'spring breeze, all going my way, hooves flying; in one day I see every flower in Chang'an.' Meng wrote it at age 46 after finally passing the jinshi exam, overjoyed after decades of failure. The first half gave us the idiom 春风得意.
usage
Shorthand for the exhilaration of a long-awaited triumph — especially one of exam/academic/career success. Chang'an (modern Xi'an) was the Tang capital and the site of the imperial examinations.

Stroke Order

一 yī
日 rì
看 kàn
尽 jǐn
长 cháng
安 ān
花 huā