“难怪圣人说海中行路都会场起灰。”

[creamyhorror]

(from http://www.wsbedu.com/chu/yu/cheng16.html)

I'm having trouble understanding the end of this expression 海中行路都会场起灰.

海中行路 / 都会 / 场起灰 seems like the right way to break it up, but the 场 doesn't make sense to me this way. Also, 起灰 would mean for ash to rise, so does the expression mean "Even while crossing the ocean, you'll cause dust to rise"?

Could it be that 场起灰 means "dust rises throughout the location/venue"?

My friends think this might be a typo - what do you guys think?

以中文解释也行。。。谢谢！

edit: I found another rendering of the story, which clarifies the meaning:

http://bbs.feeyo.com/topicprint.jsp?forumid=00816&topic=3357248

王方平笑着说：“难怪圣人说海中行路都会尘埃四起。 ”

[skylee]

It should be 揚起灰塵 instead. Note the different radical on the left of 揚.

According to the dictionary of chinese idioms of the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the explanation on the last part of the story is different -

王方平於是感嘆地說：「一旦變成陸地後，行經東海，又要滿是飛揚的塵土了。」

[creamyhorror]

Thanks a lot, Skylee, that really clears things up. How terrible that so many websites simply copied the error-containing text.

So the basic idea is that "the air will again be filled with (flying) dust", which implies that it's now dry land, right?

[Oliver_CL]

yeah, you right.