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日啖荔枝三百颗

日啖荔枝三百顆
rìdànlìzhīsānbǎikē
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 to eat three hundred lychees a day
  2. 2 fig. delight at the abundance of lychees (or local produce) in the south
  3. 3 Su Shi's famous boast from exile in Huizhou

Examples

来到广东，日啖荔枝三百颗，简直是神仙生活。
Lái dào Guǎngdōng, rì dàn lìzhī sān bǎi kē, jiǎnzhí shì shénxiān shēnghuó.
Down in Guangdong, eating three hundred lychees a day — it's truly the life of an immortal.
他笑说：日啖荔枝三百颗，不辞长作岭南人。
Tā xiào shuō: rì dàn lìzhī sān bǎi kē, bù cí cháng zuò lǐngnán rén.
He joked: 'Three hundred lychees a day — I wouldn't mind being a Lingnan man forever.'

Tips

history
From Su Shi's (苏轼) 《食荔枝》 (Eating Lychees), written during his exile to Huizhou in the late Northern Song: 罗浮山下四时春，卢橘杨梅次第新。日啖荔枝三百颗，不辞长作岭南人。 — 'Below Mount Luofu it is spring in all four seasons; kumquats and waxberries ripen one after another. Three hundred lychees a day — I would not mind being a Lingnan man forever.' A defiant, joyful line from a banished official.
usage
Always cited alongside the follow-up 不辞长作岭南人. 啖 (dàn) = to eat, slightly classical. The whole verse is essentially a 900-year-old piece of Guangdong tourism copy.

Stroke Order

日 rì
啖 dàn
荔 lì
枝 zhī
三 sān
百 bǎi
颗 kē