Idiom 如入无人之境

[chrix]

Recently when walking with some Chinese friends in an area where there were no other people around, one of them used this idiom: 如入無人之境 . At the time, it made sense to me.

However, just now, reading the Zuozhuan, in a description of a battle in Ancient China, the commentary uses this very same idiom not to mean "there were no soldiers", but "they met no resistance". So I check in the dictionary, and sure enough it says: "好像進入了沒有敵軍的地方。比喻作戰驍勇、無人能抵擋。"

So can you use it in the situation described above as well? I mean we weren't a foreign army trying to occupy the banks of the Elbe river, we were just harmless pedestrians suddenly finding themselves in a totally deserted area (and even though to the Chinese eye all German cities are empty, this was also empty to the German eye )

Edited November 19, 2009 at 12:27 PM by chrix

[dali3927]

haha, if you walked in a area where is there in other people, I'm sure your friend used this idiom wrong.

如入无人之境，originally used for battle, as you mentioned "they met no resistance" win the war easily. it's not 没有人，should be 好像没有人。

[leeyah]

My guess is 如入無人之境 in this context means something like >>we don't have to worry about intruders, the place is solely at our disposal i.e.>> wow! there's no one around, the place is all ours!

[chrix]

thanks, that's what I thought after reading the dictionary, but wanted to make sure this is correct..

[Kenny同志]

I agree with Dali. They met no resistence.