This sentence means that it is better to have no meat to eat than to live without bamboo.

This sentence comes from the poem "Yu Qian Monk Green Junxuan" written by Su Shi of the Song Dynasty. The original text of the poem is as follows:

It is better to eat without meat than to live without bamboo. No meat makes you thin, and no bamboo makes you vulgar.

Those who are thin can still gain weight, but scholars and common people cannot cure it. Others laughed at this statement, as if they were both high and foolish.

If you still chew on this, are there any Yangzhou cranes in the world?

Vernacular interpretation: It is better to have no meat to eat than to live without bamboo. Without meat, people will lose weight, but without bamboo, people will become vulgar. The reason is that people can become fat even if they are thin, and it is difficult to cure it due to human customs.

If others are puzzled by this and ask with a smile: "Does it sound like being noble or foolish?" Then I would like to ask, if you face this king (bamboo) and still chew, you want to gain the reputation of being noble. , and if you want to get the pleasure of sweetness, where in the world can you find such a good thing as "Yangzhou Crane" that has your cake and eat it too?

Extended information

This poem borrows the title "Yu Qianseng Luyunxuan" to praise elegance and high moral integrity and criticize materialistic desires. The poem is mainly composed of five characters, mainly discussion, and adopts prose sentence patterns and certain expression techniques of Fu. The style is seen in the discussion, there are waves in the discussion, and images are embedded in the discussion.

The first sentence is borrowed from the allusion of King Hui of the Jin Dynasty. Wang Xizhi's son Wang Hui was fond of bamboo. Once he stayed at a friend's house and immediately ordered people to plant bamboo. When people asked why, Hui Zhi said: "How can one There is no such king in the world. "This king is bamboo. Because there is such an outstanding image in the allusion, and the poem uses the selective and affirmative tone of "can" and "can't", the image of a transcendent and distinguished monk immediately appeared on the page.

"No meat makes you thin, no bamboo makes you vulgar" is a further development of "You cannot live without bamboo". It is rich in philosophy and sentiment, and writes about the value of material and spiritual, virtue and food in comparison; food is not sweet, it is just "making people thin" at best; if people do not have the integrity of pine and bamboo, and do not have elegance and good taste, then It will "make people vulgar".

This is not only a compliment to Qian Monk’s moral integrity, but also a warning to those who lack moral integrity. Then he used "Thin people can still gain weight, but common people cannot be cured" to complete this meaning, and then the whip went further. The most important thing for a person is his ideological character and spiritual state. As long as there is a noble sentiment, there will be the loneliness of pines and cypresses, the fragrance of plums and bamboos, not afraid of violence, walking on the straight path, and being an outstanding person.

On the contrary, they will be obsessed with fame and fortune, care about gains and losses, bow to power, and change according to the direction of the wind. They will be vulgar and flattering, and their ugly behavior will appear. Such people often think they are wise, think they have their own tricks, cannot listen to advice, and cannot change their nature. Therefore, the poet said that this kind of "common people cannot be cured" - medical treatment is ineffective.

The next paragraph reopens the waves and turns to new ideas. For that kind of "incurable" "layman" to stand up and perform for himself, this is the method of "showing" in rhetoric: "Others laugh at this saying: 'It seems high but it seems stupid.'" This "other", It’s the kind of “layman” mentioned earlier.

He listened to the poet's argument and disagreed with it. Although he thought that "you can't live without bamboo" was a completely pedantic and corrupt scholar's opinion, he verbally described it as "like a high-ranking scholar". , seems to be crazy." This ambiguous tone shows this kind of sophistication and tact; he will never make decisive remarks in the debate and make enemies.

The last sentence is the poet's ridicule and rebuttal to the lay people. Yangzhou Heyu published "Yin Yun Novels". The main idea of ??the story is that there are guests who follow each other and have their own ambitions. Some want to be the governor of Yangzhou. Some want to buy more money, and some want to ride a crane to the sky and become gods. One of them said: He wanted to "ride a crane to Yangzhou with a hundred thousand guan in his waist", and get the benefits of being promoted, getting rich, and becoming an immortal at the same time.

The irony of the last sentence is that it is rare for a person with high reputation to be rich, and it is rare for a person with great wealth to be famous; an official has no time to imitate the immortal, a Taoist person has no time to be an official; a meat-eating person has no time to be an official. People with high moral integrity do not eat meat; they cannot have both benefits, let alone multiple benefits.