玉宇澄清万里埃

玉宇澄清萬里埃

yùyǔ chéngqīng wànlǐ āi

quotation

Meanings

1 to sweep the jade heavens clean of ten-thousand-li dust
2 to purify the skies of all filth for ten thousand miles
3 Mao Zedong's triumphant line paired with the Golden Monkey couplet

Characters

jade (with 宇)

sky / cosmos (with 玉)

to clarify (with 清)

pure (with 澄)

li (distance unit)

Examples

HSK 7-9

金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃。

Jīnhóu fènqǐ qiānjūn bàng, yùyǔ chéngqīng wànlǐ āi.

The Golden Monkey raises his thousand-jun cudgel, sweeping the jade heavens clean of ten-thousand-li dust.

HSK 7-9

反腐行动力求玉宇澄清万里埃。

Fǎn fǔ xíngdòng lìqiú yùyǔ chéngqīng wànlǐ āi.

The anti-corruption campaign seeks to 'sweep the jade heavens clean of ten-thousand-li dust.'

Tips

history

From Mao Zedong's 1961 poem 《七律·和郭沫若同志》: 金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃. It borrows the image of the Monkey King from 《西游记》 sweeping away demons to allude to the struggle against revisionism. 玉宇 is an elegant term for the heavens or cosmos, used in classical Chinese for the sky (as in Su Shi's 琼楼玉宇).

usage

Always used together with the preceding line 金猴奋起千钧棒. Here 埃 means 尘埃 (dust). In modern use it appears in propaganda about anti-corruption, rectification, and cleaning up disorder.

Stroke Order

玉 yù

宇 yǔ

澄 chéng

清 qīng

万 wàn

里 lǐ

埃 āi