May your chance of promotion be just round the corner
指日高升
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The action of ‘pointing to the sun’ is termed in Chinese as ‘指日 zhi ri’, which sounds and looks exactly the same as (both homophone and homograph of) the phrase ‘指日 zhi ri’ meaning ‘in a few days’ time’. The state of ‘something rising high up’ is ‘高升 gao sheng’ in Chinese, which may be metaphorically used to mean ‘getting a promotion’. Thus, the image of a person pointing to the sun high up in the sky visually cues the congratulatory saying ‘zhi ri gao sheng 指日高升 – May your chance of promotion be just round the corner’.
Interesting reading:
How do you tell a sun from a moon in porcelain painting
Related Pun Pictures:
Fig 1: blue-and-white jar, Shunzhi period (sic), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Accession no. EA1978.2007
Fig 2-3: famille verte baluster vase with lid, c. 1645–1660, courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fig 4: porcelain dish, Kangxi (1662–1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art
Fig 5: covered ewer, Kangxi period (1662–1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig 6-7: porcelain vase, Kangxi period (1662–1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig 8: blue-and-white dish, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), courtesy of Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands