The figurative use is iconic — Mao Zedong's 1925 poem 《
沁园春·
长沙》 ends with the line "
问苍茫大地，
谁主沉浮？" ("I ask the vast and hazy earth: who masters its rise and fall?") — a line so famous it's drilled into every Chinese high schooler. The word now carries that grand, fate-of-empires register whenever it's used metaphorically.
