Dazzlingly Bright

Do you have tons of splendid jewelry, or want just four words to describe what Aladdin found? Then this is the idiom you need.

Now we learn a new phrase, which word-for-word means, “light splendour grab eye”, in other words, “dazzlingly bright.” The Chinese reads: Guang Cai Duo Mu. We use it to describe beautiful, brilliant things. There is an interesting story behind the idiom.

In the Western Jin Dynasty, from the 3rd to 4th century AD, there was a very rich and powerful man called Shi Chong. When he was the prefectural governor of Jingzhou, he ordered his men to rob merchants. He collected a lot of treasure by doing so, and became extremely rich.

At that time, general Wang Kai, uncle of the emperor, was also very rich. He and Shi Chong competed to see who was the richer. To show off, they used their finest collections to decorate their vehicles and clothes.

The emperor, who knew the two were competing, wanted Wang Kai to beat Shi Chong, so he gave him some of his treasure. The emperor once gave Wang Kai a beautiful, large piece of rare coral, with lots of delicate branches. Wang Kai thought he would surely beat Shi Chong this time.

He showed the coral to Shi Chong, and bragged about it. Shi Chong took a look at the coral, and sneered. Then he picked up a heavy iron rod, and smashed the coral into smithereens.

Wang Kai shouted out, “The coral was given to me by the emperor! How are you going to pay for it?”

Shi Chong replied, “What's so special about a lump of coral like that? I'll pay for it now.”

He then told his servants to bring out the coral he had collected. They came out with a few dozen pieces of coral, some so large they came up to a man's waist. Six or seven of the pieces were amazingly bright, and many of them were at least as good as the one he had broken.

Wang Kai stared at all this fabulous coral. He was speechless!

The treasure collected by Shi Chong, one of the most famous rich men in China's history, inspired the idiom Guang Cai Duo Mu - dazzlingly bright and brilliant. It is used to describe something that looks absolutely splendid. If you see something very beautiful and eye-catching, you can use the idiom Guang Cai Duo Mu.