In this series of Chinese idiom short stories

we’ll be introducing Chinese idioms that have a long-standing history in ancient China but are still in use today. A background story of the idiom will be provided, along with sample sentence(s) to give you an idea of how to use them. Today we will learn the idiom - 价值连城(jia4 zhi2 lian2 cheng2, something that has great value that is priceless to somebody).

General Meaning

Let’s break down the idiom and understand one character by one character:

• 价(jia4, price)

• 值(zhi2, worth)

• 连(lian2, one after another)

• 城(cheng2, city)

This idiom is used to describe an object with great value or very precious. Why is it so? Let’s take a look at its background story!

Background Story

During the Warring States period (战国时期, zhan4 guo2 shi2 qi1) (475 BC-221 BC) in ancient China, a peasant (农民, nong2 min2) in the Wei State accidentally came across a piece of unusual stone (石头, shi2 tou0) in the field he was farming. Though grotesque in shape (形状, xing2 zhuang4), the stone was sparkling and crystal-clear and seemed to him very beautiful (美丽, mei3 li4). He brought it home (家, jia1).

He went to his neighbour (邻居, lin2 ju1) who was a jade artisan and asked him what kind of stone it was. His neighbor saw immediately that it was a piece of rare and precious jade (玉, yu4), and wanted to keep it for himself. He then lies to the peasant, “This stone is very strange (奇怪, qi2 guai4). Anyone who keeps it will have terrible things happen to him. You’d better put it back where you found it.” The peasant didn’t quite believe (相信, xiang1 xin4) what his neighbor had told him. He did not throw it away immediately and took the stone home.

That night, after the lamp was put out, the stone emitted a bright beam of light (光, guang1) all of a sudden, which scared the whole family. The peasant went to his neighbor and told him about it. His neighbor lied to him again, “This is a very bad sign. To avoid tragedy in your family, you must put it back where you found it.” This time the peasant believed his neighbour completely and threw the stone away. The neighbor was very happy that the peasant had done as he said, and later snuck out to the field and picked up the jade, after which he went to the palace and presented it to the King.

At first, the King felt it did not amount to much. However, the jade artisan insisted that it was a piece of very precious jade. The King told an experienced jade carver to give his opinion. The old jade carver examined it and said to the King, “Congratulations, Your Majesty, this is a rare treasure indeed. I've never before seen jade as valuable.” The king was very pleased to hear this. He asked the jade carver just how much the jade was worth. The jade carver answered, “It is a priceless treasure (无价之宝, wu2 jia4 zhi1 bao3). Merely taking a look at it should cost the price of five cities (五座城, wu3 zuo4 cheng2).” The king was very happy and gave the peasant’s neighbor a huge reward.

Sample Sentence(s)

• 这块钻石是我外祖母留下来的，对我来说，它价值连城。

  zhe4 kuai4 zuan4 shi2 shi4 wo3 wai4 zu3 mu3 liu2 xia4 lai2 de0, dui4 wo3 lai2 shuo1, ta1 jia4 zhi2 lian2 cheng2.

  My grandmother handed down this piece of diamond to me. In my view, its worth is priceless.

Hope that this post will help you better understand the meaning and the context of using this idiom. Stay tuned to our blog for more Chinese idiom learning posts. Do send us an email if you are interested in learning Mandarin Chinese (Children’s Chinese / HSK / Business Chinese) in Singapore! See you in the next post.