朱门酒肉臭

Origin and story

This line comes from Du Fu's poem Zijing fu Fengxian xian yonghuai wubai zi, reflecting on his journey from the capital to Fengxian. He sets the wine and meat behind aristocratic red gates against the bodies of people who have frozen beside the road. The surrounding verses describe luxurious entertainments and the labor of poor households that supplies elite comfort. Later in the poem, he arrives home to learn that his young son has died of hunger.

This is a poetic indictment of inequality, not a separate folktale. Read with its following line, it contrasts extravagant abundance and desperate deprivation existing almost side by side.