Jiang Lang Cai Jin

Literal Meaning: A litterateur surnamed Jiang ran out of his talents.

Metaphorical Meaning: A man is at his wit’s end.

In the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 – 589 AD) there lived a man named Jiang Yan. When he was a young boy, he was famous for his literary skills. His poems and articles won great applauses from the critics. However, as he grew older, his skills in writing gradually faded away. His articles and poems were not as charming and wonderful as before. Actually, they were much more boring and blank than his earlier works. A few years later, he could never work out an article or poem immediately after he picked up the writing brush like he did before. Sometimes he could finish an article or poem, which was quite uninteresting and not worth reading.

A legendary explanation to what happened to Jiang Yan was that one day he dreamed of a man who claimed himself to be Zhang Jingyang asking him for a piece of silk. He did fetch out some silk and gave them to Zhang Jingyang. Then his works was not as wonderful as before.

There was another legendary explanation, saying that a man named Guo Pu appeared in Jiang’s dream and asked to retrieve a writing brush which “he lent to Jiang a long time ago.” After returning the brush, Jiang lost his wits in literature.