Returning Home: I
回鄉偶書二首（其一）
Huí xiāng ǒu shū èr shǒu · qí yī
A returning traveler keeps his home accent, but a new generation recognizes him only as a visitor. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes.
Read the poem
Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 少小 shào xiǎo when young
- 離家 lí jiā leave home
- 老大 lǎo dà old
- 回 huí return
Word meanings — Line 2
- 鄉音 xiāng yīn home accent
- 無改 wú gǎi unchanged
- 鬢毛 bìn máo temple hair
- 衰 shuāi decline; thin
Word meanings — Line 3
- 兒童 ér tóng children
- 相見 xiāng jiàn see me
- 不相識 bù xiāng shí do not recognize me
Word meanings — Line 4
- 笑問 xiào wèn ask with a smile
- 客 kè visitor
- 從 cóng from
- 何處 hé chù where
- 來 lái come
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
少小離家老大回，
鄉音無改鬢毛衰。
兒童相見不相識，
笑問客從何處來。
Translation
I left home young and come back old;
the home accent is unchanged, but the hair at my temples has thinned.
The children see me and do not recognize me;
smiling, they ask where this visitor has come from.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
少小離家老大回，
Pronunciation hint
shào xiǎo
Reveal meaning and translation
少小 — when young
I left home young and come back old;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
兒童相見不相識，
Pronunciation hint
ér tóng
Reveal meaning and translation
兒童 — children
The children see me and do not recognize me;
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
笑問客從何處來。
Pronunciation hint
xiào wèn
Reveal meaning and translation
笑問 — ask with a smile
smiling, they ask where this visitor has come from.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
Line-by-line notes →Self-check at your own pace. No score or progress is saved. Open only the answers you want included when printing.
Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 — What returns unchanged
少小 and 老大 put the beginning and end of an absence in the same line. 離 and 回 do the work of the whole intervening journey. 鄉音 then gives the speaker one thing he has kept, his home accent, while 鬢毛衰 shows the years at his temples. The English adds “but” to bring out that contrast. We use the modern Mandarin reading shuāi for 衰 in its sense of decline. That reading does not reconstruct the historical rhyme.
Lines 3–4 — A question for a stranger
相 in 不相識 is directed toward the speaker. The children see him and do not know who he is. 笑 makes their question friendly on the surface, so the force falls on 客, “visitor.” The older man’s 回 in line one described a return, while the children’s 來 at the end treats the same movement as an arrival from somewhere else. The reader can hear both descriptions at once. The poem ends before the traveler has to answer.
Form and tone
This seven-character quatrain compresses a lifetime in its first line and an immediate encounter in its last two. 回 and 來 both concern arrival, yet the final 來 is framed by the children’s question. The historical rhyme cannot be inferred simply from today’s reading of 衰.
See the jueju guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin; no historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
Homecoming does not automatically restore recognition. The speaker’s accent connects him to a place, while the children’s unfamiliarity locates him outside their lived memory. The source presents this as the first of two homecoming poems; the second considers changes over the years through a different scene. This page keeps the first encounter complete in itself.
Read more by He Zhizhang, or follow the homesickness shelf. The English translation, gloss, and notes are original to PoemWell.
Sources
回鄉偶書二首, public transcription. The first poem, following 無改, 鬢毛衰, and 笑問. The transcription records alternatives at these points. Punctuation and reading-line divisions are editorial.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
He Zhizhang. “Returning Home: I” (回鄉偶書二首（其一）). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/returning-home-one
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.