Chinese idiom · 成语
杳如黄鹤
Meaning
Gone like a yellow crane; to disappear without a trace.
Character by character
Origin and story
LegendA supernatural tale attributed to Ren Fang’s Shuyi Zhuan (述異傳), preserved in Yiwen Leiju (藝文類聚), volume 63, describes Xun Gui resting at Yellow Crane Tower. A figure approaches from the southwestern sky riding a crane. The immortal lands, converses pleasantly with him, then mounts the crane and rises away until he vanishes.
The crane’s departure also resonates with Cui Hao’s Tang poem Huanghe Lou (黃鶴樓), which evokes a crane that never returns. The idiom belongs to this literary and legendary imagery, not a documented human flight. It describes someone or something that has disappeared without further trace or news.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
那位买家付完定金后就杳如黄鹤，怎么也联系不上。
After paying the deposit, that buyer vanished without a trace and could not be contacted.
A literary expression for disappearance with no subsequent news.