异乡

異鄉

yìxiāng

noun #22,294

Meanings

1 foreign land
2 a place far from home
3 strange land

Characters

different / strange / foreign

hometown / rural area / village

Examples

独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲。

Dú zài yìxiāng wéi yì kè, měi féng jiājié bèi sī qīn.

Alone in a foreign land as a stranger, I miss my family doubly at every festival.

他在异乡漂泊了十年。

Tā zài yìxiāng piāobó le shí nián.

He drifted in a foreign land for ten years.

Tips

history

异乡 is immortalized in Wang Wei's Tang dynasty poem 《九月九日忆山东兄弟》: 「独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲」— one of the most quoted lines in Chinese poetry, evoked whenever speakers are far from home during festivals.

Stroke Order

异 yì

乡 xiāng