Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

is high and the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

is far away is a Chinese proverb thought to have originated from

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

during the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...

.My China Connection
Heaven is high and the emperor is far away
. The

Chinese Central Government The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the pre ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

exercises little direct oversight on the affairs of lower-level governments, allowing much regional autonomy in the country. The proverb has thus come to generally mean that central authorities have little influence over local affairs, and it is often used in reference to corruption. The saying, as it is considered in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, has multiple meanings. Often it involves something minor such as walking on the grass when no one is watching, ignoring a command because the father is far away, cutting timber when not permitted, or ignoring the

one-child policy The term one-child policy () refers to a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. That initiative was part of a much bro ...

. It is also used to describe a lawless place far from the authorities. The original variation, "the ''mountains'' are high and the emperor is far away", is also still heard ().Dartmouth College.
Chinese Proverbs
".

Russian similarity

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

, there exists a directly similar proverb: до бога высоко, до царя далеко ''do boga vysoko, do czarya daleko'', with a usually omitted rhyming continuation of а до меня близко - кланяйся мне низко ''a do menya blizko - klanyaysa mne nizko'', which can be translated as "God is high, and the czar is far away (while I am near, so bow deeply to me)". In its short form, it is typically used to say there is no hope for external aid; while the full form describes lower echelons of bureaucracy abusing their power while the authority meant to keep them in check is absent or indifferent. Also, Бог высок и царь очень далёк (''Bog vysok i tsar' dalyok'', "God is on high and the tsar is very far away").

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tian Gao Huang-Di Yuan Chinese proverbs Corruption in China History of Zhejiang Yuan dynasty

Russian similarity

See also

References