The original text is qiubo 秋波 [autumn ripples]. Autumn water ripples are a metaphor for the eyes of a beautiful woman, describing them as clear, bright, and full of affection. This word is famously used in the zaju 雜劇 drama Xixiang ji 西廂記 [Story of the Western Wing] to describe the female protagonist Cui Yingying’s seductive eyes, and is therefore considered to have an erotic connotation. Later, the meaning of qiubo expanded and became a general byword for female eyes.
Language and Culture Center (LCC) at Duke Kunshan University
