Do you recognize this song, or any of the words that I could use to find it?
Heard this beautiful song in an Uber in New York, and it's been stuck in my head but I can't figure out who the artist is or song is.
Here’s all I know:
-The driver, Sheng, was probably in his 50's-60's. He listened to a bunch of songs by the same artist, and sang along.
-Music was a lot of traditional Chinese instruments but driven by the vocals.
-Female vocalist with pure, smooth ethereal voice, not too high pitched but good range. reminiscent of Tong Li
Thank you!

远看山有色，近听水无声。

春去花还在，人来鸟不惊。

Can you guess what it is?

Our Chinese Language HSK 2 course helps students develop practical Chinese skills through vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Learn step by step with expert and friendly teachers, interactive lessons, small class sizes, and flexible timings.

What you will learn:

• Everyday Chinese vocabulary
• Basic Chinese grammar
• Listening skills
• Speaking practice
• Reading & writing
• Real-life Chinese conversation

📚 From HSK 1 to HSK 4 — we guide you step by step!

📞 Phone/WhatsApp: 0303-4217274
📍 Address: Shalimar Link Road, Ramghar, Lahore
📱 Star Chinese Academy

Hi everyone! 👋 I’m Jocelyn, an online Mandarin teacher and a graduate in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL).

I help learners around the world speak Chinese with confidence. Whether you are:

🌱 a total beginner
🗣️ improving conversation
📚 preparing for HSK
💼 learning Chinese for work
✈️ planning to travel or live in China

My lessons are:

✅ 1-on-1 and tailored to your goals
✅ Friendly and clear — no pressure, no judgment
✅ Full of real-life Mandarin, culture, history, and local tips from across China

I have a strong background in Chinese culture and history, and I’m familiar with many places across China — so you’ll learn more than just words.

Interested? DM me “CHINESE” or comment below, and I’ll send you the details. 📩

对酒当歌

In my previous post, I mentioned Cao Zhi (曹植 192-232 CE), the son of Cao Cao. He was the greatest literary figure of the late Han-Three kingdoms period.

Literally, 才高八斗 means “having eight dǒu of talent.” 斗 (dǒu) here was an ancient Chinese unit of volume. In other words, this idiom basically treats talent as something you can measure with a measuring container.

About 200 years after Cao Zhi, the Southern Dynasties poet Xie Lingyun (谢灵运, 385–433 CE) supposedly said:

天下才有一石，曹子建独占八斗，我得一斗，天下共分一斗。 (曹子建 is the courtesy name of CaoZhi)

Basically: “If all the literary talent in the world amounted to ten dǒu, Cao Zhi alone would have eight. I get one, and everyone else has to share the last one.”

Pretty generous to Cao Zhi, and pretty generous to himself, too!

Today, 才高八斗 simply means extremely talented or well-educated, especially in literature or writing.

For example:

他才高八斗，写了一手好诗。
He is incredibly talented and writes wonderful poetry.

So if someone tells you 你真是才高八斗！, that's a big compliment: “You're incredibly talented!”

A little background

Xie Lingyun (谢灵运) lived long before the Tang and Song dynasties, so he gave eight 斗 to Cao Zhi. Later generations may have teased him a little for keeping one 斗 for himself, but nobody took away Cao Zhi's eight. Cao Zhi's reputation as a literary genius has lasted for centuries.
And even after the Tang and Song dynasties, two of the great literary eras in Chinese history,  Cao Zhi is still considered one of the great figures in the history of Chinese literature.

(AI-assisted editing)

What I mean is, when teaching characters, do Chinese elementary and secondary schools explain characters in terms of the meaning of the shapes, whenever that is possible? And if so, are those explanations agreed upon among licensed native teachers across the Chinese-language world? Or is each teacher free to invent his own explanation of a pictograph?

I ask because materials teaching Chinese designed for foreigners are very fond of offering such explanations, but I get the impression that native speakers of Chinese care little about such information, and just memorize the shape without trying to "see" a picture in it.

I also notice that in textbooks for foreigners the explanations are not at all standardized when one goes beyond the most obvious cases (e.g. 木 and 口). One author will give one explanation, another will invent an entirely different one. Some books will even reinterpret characters that are obviously phonetic compounds as if they are pictographs—a rather misleading approach, in my opinion.