Chinese Idiom: 月下老人 (Yue Xia Lao Ren)
English Translation: The Old Man Under the Moon
pīn yīn: yuè xià lǎo rén
Idiom Meaning: Originally refers to the deity in charge of marriage. It is now used more generally to refer to a matchmaker or mediator in romantic relationships.
Historical Source: The idiom originates from the Tang Dynasty, specifically from Li Fuyan’s work Continuation of the Records of the Strange (《续幽怪录》).
Idiom Story:
During the Tang Dynasty, a man named Wei Guo traveled to Song City and stayed at a local inn. One evening, while wandering the streets, he encountered an old man sitting under the moonlight. The old man was reading a large, thick book and had a bag full of red strings beside him.
Curious, Wei Guo asked, “Old man, what are you reading?” The old man replied, “This is a book that records the marriages of all men and women in the world.”
Intrigued, Wei Guo inquired further, “And what are the red strings for?” The old man smiled and explained, “These red strings are used to bind the feet of couples. Regardless of their enmity or distance, as long as these strings are tied to their feet, they will inevitably reconcile and marry each other.”
Wei Guo, skeptical of the old man’s claims, thought he was joking. However, he followed the old man to the grain market, where the old man pointed out a blind woman carrying a three-year-old girl, saying, “This girl will be your future wife.”
Annoyed and thinking the old man was mocking him, Wei Guo ordered his servant to kill the girl to see if she would still become his wife. The servant stabbed the girl and fled. When Wei Guo later tried to confront the old man, he had vanished.
Fourteen years later, Wei Guo was about to marry a beautiful woman, the daughter of the Prefect of Xiangzhou. The only unusual feature was a scar on her forehead. When Wei Guo asked his father-in-law about the scar, he learned that it was the result of an attack by a madman fourteen years earlier, when the girl was carried by a blind woman through the grain market.
Realizing that the girl who had been attacked was the same one the old man had predicted would be his wife, Wei Guo was stunned. He shared the story of the old man with his father-in-law, and they both marveled at the coincidence.
Thus, the story of the Moon Old Man, who ties the red strings of fate between couples, became widely known, and people began referring to matchmakers as “月下老人” (Moon Old Man) or simply “月老” (Old Man of the Moon).
