坐地日行八万里

坐地日行八萬里

zuòdìrìxíngbāwànlǐ

phrase

Meanings

1 sitting still on earth, I travel eighty thousand li a day
2 Mao Zedong's playful line reckoning Earth's rotation — you move vast distances simply by standing still

Characters

Examples

毛泽东写过"坐地日行八万里"，把地球自转写成了诗。

Máo Zédōng xiěguo "zuò dì rì xíng bā wàn lǐ", bǎ dìqiú zìzhuàn xiě chéng le shī.

Mao Zedong wrote 'sitting still, one travels eighty thousand li a day' — turning Earth's rotation into poetry.

老师讲地球自转，引用了"坐地日行八万里"。

Lǎoshī jiǎng dìqiú zìzhuàn, yǐnyòng le "zuò dì rì xíng bā wàn lǐ".

Explaining Earth's rotation, the teacher cited 'sitting still, one travels eighty thousand li a day.'

Tips

history

From 《七律二首·送瘟神》 by 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong, 1958), written after reading that schistosomiasis had been eliminated in Yujiang: '坐地日行八万里，巡天遥看一千河。' The 8万里 (40,000 km) is roughly Earth's circumference — 'you ride that distance daily without moving.'

usage

里 here is the Chinese li (~500m), so 八万里 ≈ 40,000 km — the poetic approximation of Earth's equator.

Stroke Order

坐 zuò

地 dì

日 rì

行 xíng

八 bā

万 wàn

里 lǐ