Thursday, October 1, 2009

落花有意 流水无情

I recently read this in an email, ‘落花有意,流水无情’.
I have always admired the articulation of the Chinese language and how by combining a few words into a verse, it can have a very different and deep meaning.

Some verses like this evoke a sense of poetry and romanticism.

My initial interpretation of this was of the flower petals (which I took to mean the female) having the intention, but the flowing water (meaning the male) does not reciprocate. This verse is now mainly used to describe the love relationship.

Of course, I wanted to reply to my friend saying “落花无意” as we were chatting about someone we know. That someone happens to be a female and was not the one that has any intentions.
Before I hit send on my reply, I did a bit of digging online to see if my interpretation was accurate.
I found this, “shedding petals, the waterside flower pines for love, while the heartless brook babbles on unrequited love(http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/12/ZdicE8Zdic90ZdicBD199488.htm)






My other source was of course my older sibling, not sure where my sister got this but that was what I got the next day – “最初说的是禅理,而现在更多的用来描述情感。落花遇见流水,实属天意,而流水不恋落花,亦是无奈,在人生旅途上有多少这样的萍水相逢、一见钟情、转瞬即逝而又经久难忘的一厢恋情……构成了一幕幕“落花有意,流水无情”的戏剧性场景。但多情总被无情恼,那无情的风景,总让人牵怀.”

Amazing! How 8 words can be used to mean so much about our life when it comes to love. How true that if you asks any singles, many are still searching for someone but the same comment ring in many of them, “ they know people who are interested in them, but those are not who they are interested in, where is that person they are looking for?”. Which leads to the sentiment of 但多情总被无情恼,那无情的风景,总让人牵怀= having more love/affections creates more woe than none, but being in a loveless state makes people cherish for it.


I do ponder, what do you think?