坐地日行八万里

坐地日行八萬里

zuò dì rì xíng bā wàn lǐ

quotation

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

HSK 6

毛泽东写过"坐地日行八万里"，把地球自转写成了诗。

Máo Zédōng xiě guo " zuò dì rì xíng bāwàn 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.

HSK 7-9

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 bāwàn 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