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黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛

黑夜給了我黑色的眼睛
Hēi yè gěi le wǒ hēisè de yǎnjīng
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 the black night gave me black eyes
  2. 2 the dark age has given me eyes made for seeing in the dark
  3. 3 Gu Cheng's iconic line on being born to a broken era

Examples

HSK 6
黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛，我却用它寻找光明。
Hēiyè gěi le wǒ hēisè de yǎnjīng, wǒ què yòng tā xúnzhǎo guāngmíng.
The black night gave me black eyes, yet I use them to search for light.
HSK 7-9
这一代人常引用黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛。
Zhè yídàirén cháng yǐnyòng hēiyè gěi le wǒ hēisè de yǎnjīng.
This generation often quotes 'the black night gave me black eyes.'

Tips

history
From Gu Cheng's (顾城, 1979) two-line poem 《一代人》 ('A Generation'): 黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛，我却用它寻找光明 - 'The black night gave me black eyes, yet I use them to search for light.' Written by the 23-year-old Gu Cheng, one of the 朦胧诗 ('Misty Poetry') leaders, as a manifesto for the generation that grew up in the Cultural Revolution. One of the most quoted lines in modern Chinese.
usage
Almost always quoted with its second half 我却用它寻找光明 - the surprise pivot that turns the first line from fatalism into defiance. The couplet is the unofficial motto of post-Cultural-Revolution Chinese literature and still appears everywhere - from tattoos to political speeches.

Stroke Order

黑 hēi
夜 yè
给 gěi
了 le
我 wǒ
色 sè
的 de
眼 yǎn
睛 jīng