Chinese idiom · 成语
海市蜃楼
Meaning
A mirage at sea; an illusion or unattainable dream.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary expression and traditional beliefShiji (史記), Tian Guan Shu (天官書), describes formations beside the sea that resemble towers and terraces. The passage belongs to an ancient discussion of visible vapors and their significance. The word 蜃 became associated with a traditional explanation that a great shellfish could breathe out the apparent buildings.
Song writer Shen Kuo also recorded sea-market sights near Dengzhou, where forms resembling buildings and people appeared in mist. Such accounts preserve observation together with historical interpretation; a mirage is an optical phenomenon, not a city built by an animal. The idiom now names mirages and, figuratively, impressive things that prove insubstantial or fleeting.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
没有实际订单支撑，所谓的繁荣不过是海市蜃楼。
Without real orders to support it, the supposed prosperity is only a mirage.
For an illusion of substance or permanence; also the ordinary term for a mirage.