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截断巫山云雨

截斷巫山雲雨
jiéduàn Wūshān yúnyǔ
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 to cut off the clouds and rain of Mount Wu
  2. 2 to block the Wu Gorge clouds (hold back the Yangtze floods)
  3. 3 Mao Zedong's line imagining the Three Gorges Dam

Examples

HSK 7-9
更立西江石壁，截断巫山云雨，高峡出平湖。
Gèng lì Xījiāng shí bì, jiéduàn Wūshān yúnyǔ, gāoxiá chū pínghú.
Let's raise a stone wall across the western river, cut off the Wu Gorge clouds, and make a calm lake emerge from the deep gorge.
HSK 7-9
三峡大坝真的截断巫山云雨了。
Sānxiá Dàbà zhēnde jiéduàn Wūshān yúnyǔ le.
The Three Gorges Dam really did 'cut off the clouds and rain of Mount Wu.'

Tips

history
From Mao Zedong's 1956 《水调歌头·游泳》: 更立西江石壁，截断巫山云雨，高峡出平湖。神女应无恙，当惊世界殊. It imagined the Three Gorges Dam (filled in 2003) more than sixty years early. 巫山云雨 originally alludes to the King of Chu's dream of the goddess in Song Yu's 《高唐赋》; here it is reworked to mean the literal clouds and rain of the Yangtze gorges.
usage
巫山云雨 in classical literature alludes to a romantic tryst (the King of Chu meeting the Wushan goddess in a dream). Mao strips the allusion and takes only the literal sense. Watch the context when quoting it.

Stroke Order

截 jié
断 duàn
巫 wū
山 shān
云 yún
雨 yǔ