千树万树梨花开

千樹萬樹梨花開

qiānshùwànshùlíhuākāi

phrase

Meanings

1 on a thousand trees, ten thousand trees, pear blossoms bloom — a vast white landscape (originally used to describe snow)
2 literally: thousand trees, myriad trees, pear-flowers open

Characters

Examples

一夜雪后，山谷里真是千树万树梨花开。

Yí yè xuě hòu, shāngǔ lǐ zhēn shì qiān shù wàn shù lí huā kāi.

After a night's snow, the valley really looked like 'a thousand trees, ten thousand trees of pear blossoms'.

北方初冬的雾凇景象，千树万树梨花开。

Běifāng chūdōng de wùsōng jǐngxiàng, qiān shù wàn shù lí huā kāi.

Early-winter rime frost in the north — a thousand trees and ten thousand trees of pear blossom.

Tips

history

From Cen Shen's (岑参) Tang frontier poem 《白雪歌送武判官归京》 (Song of White Snow, Seeing Off Adjutant Wu Back to the Capital). Couplet: 忽如一夜春风来，千树万树梨花开 — 'All at once, as if a spring wind came overnight, on thousands of trees, myriads of trees, pear blossoms bloom.' The twist: this is not spring — Cen is describing a sudden heavy snowfall in the frozen Western Regions. The comparison is startlingly tender for a frontier poem.

usage

Used for any vast white expanse — snow scenery, rime on trees, sometimes pear orchards in real bloom. Tour copy, photography captions, and winter poetry invariably reach for this line.

Stroke Order

千 qiān

树 shù

万 wàn

梨 lí

花 huā

开 kāi