Chinese idiom · 成语
月下老人
Meaning
The old man under the moon; the matchmaker god.
Character by character
Origin and story
LegendLi Fuyan's Tang tale Ding Hun Dian tells of Wei Gu meeting an old man reading a marriage register by moonlight before dawn. The man carries red cords that invisibly bind the feet of future spouses. He identifies a small girl with a vegetable seller as Wei Gu's future wife. Disdaining her apparent poverty, Wei Gu orders an attack; the girl survives with a scar between her eyebrows.
Fourteen years later, he marries a young woman raised by an official uncle and discovers that scar. The tale treats his failed attempt to escape the match as proof of predestined marriage. This is supernatural fiction, not evidence that relationships are fixed by fate. 月下老人 later names the matchmaking deity, or playfully a human matchmaker.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
他们在我组织的读书会上认识，后来开玩笑叫我月下老人。
They met at the book club I organized and later jokingly called me their matchmaker.
May refer to the traditional deity or humorously to someone who brings a couple together.