商贾云集
shāng gǔ yún jí
merchants flock together; a busy centre of trade
Character by character
商shāng
merchant
merchant
贾gǔ
trader
trader
云yún
cloud
cloud
集jí
gather
gather
Example
这座古城当年是丝绸之路上的重镇，商贾云集，热闹非凡。
In its day this old city was a key town on the Silk Road, crowded with merchants and bustling with life.
Tone: positive (praise).
Usage and origin
Written and a little literary, used of trading towns past and present and of big trade fairs; Xi Jinping’s 2014 speech used the same image, calling Yiwu 阿拉伯商人云集的义乌市, “Yiwu, where Arab merchants gather”. 贾 is read gǔ, “merchant”, as in 商贾 (lesson 8-23), not Jiǎ as in the surname.
Learn this in Lesson 184 · HSK 7–9: 义乌 (Yiwu, the world’s supermarket)
A dialogue, a reading, word cards with audio and a drill that uses it, in Learn Chinese with Bao. The first lessons of every level are free.
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