Reader question:
What does this headline – A sea change on immigration? – mean?
My comments:
It means a major change in immigration policy.
Sea change is an idiom, referring to drastic change, fundamental change, a total about turn, a radical, dramatic, even mythical change, or in Chinese parley, 沧海桑田般的改变.
I don't usually explain English idioms with Chinese, as I see that as a poor habit (preventing one from thinking in terms of English when communicating in that language). But sea change is an exception. You see, it matches perfectly with the Chinese idiom, in both meaning and in terms of the mythical.
The English idiom is said to have been first used by none other than William Shakespeare.
In The Tempest, published in 1610, Shakespeare wrote:
Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell
Ding-dong
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.
The Chinese idiom 沧海桑田
"It must have been five- or six-hundred years since I saw you last," says one, a woman known as Ma Gu. "As a matter of fact, since I became a fairy, I've seen the sea morph into mulberry fields and vice versa no less than three times. In fact, the last time I visited Penglai (a celestial mountain off the coast of Qingdao, where Olympic yachting events are to be held next month) I did not fail to notice that the waters were shallower than before. I won't be surprised if the East Sea turns into dry land once again."
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