It is the title of a cartoon film,but I cannot understand what it means. 三万里 is equivalent to 15,000 kilometers. Does it mean the city of 长安 is located this distant? Technically it is impossible. Does it mean the city is as large as 30 thousand square meters? The unit of measurement is wrong. It is like the famous work of French Sci-fi writer Jules Verne, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", whose Chinese title is 海底两万哩.
3
-
长安三万里 seems to mean "the thirty thousand miles distance to Chang'an"– Tang Ho ♦Commented Jan 20 at 1:23
-
Quote:- "Technically it is impossible" By now you should know that these generalized expressions of great distances , long periods of time, etc, are not to be taken literally. It's like the expression 万岁, 万岁, 万, 万, 岁? It simply means " Long Live" to the Emperor. No one would seriously multiply up all the 10,000 years. Without any specific context, 长安三万里 means what it says, i.e., 长安 is far, far away.– Wayne CheahCommented Jan 20 at 2:43
-
@WayneCheah That makes much sense but regretably I did not realize that. Regarding the question of "long live", I find that high-ranking officials like 宰相 could have 九千岁 at the most, whereas 万岁 was exclusive to the emperor; and that an official would risk having his head cut off if greeted in public with the slogan 万岁.– NanningYouthCommented Jan 20 at 14:34
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
The title of the film is taken from a line in the Ming Dynasty poet Chen Zilong's "Marching from the Army", 梦到长安三万里，海风吹断碛西头 "Dreaming of Chang 'an 30,000 miles, the sea breeze blows off the west end of the moraine". Among them, "Chang 'an" clearly means the Tang Dynasty, and actually represents the ideal land pursued by the Tang Dynasty poets, while "thirty thousand miles" seems to be the length, but it is actually the distance between the Tang Dynasty poets and the ideal.
