Handan gave the Chinese language its idiom for imitating others so badly that you lose your own skills, after a young man from the state of Yan went there to learn the local walk and had to crawl home.
邯郸为汉语贡献了一条成语,用来形容盲目模仿他人、反而丢掉自己本领的人:相传燕国一名少年前往邯郸学习当地人走路的姿态,结果连自己原来的走法也忘了,只好爬着回家。
The same city produced the idiom for returning something to its owner intact, after the minister Lin Xiangru brought a priceless jade back from the Qin court, and the one for carrying thorns to ask for punishment, after the general Lian Po, offended at being ranked below Lin, bared his back and carried thorn rods to his door to apologise. Lin had avoided a clash by turning his carriage back in a narrow lane; local tradition places that encounter at Huiche Lane, or Turn-the-Carriage Lane, a name still on the city’s map.
同一座城市还留下了”完璧归赵”——蔺相如自秦国将价值连城的和氏璧完整带回——以及”负荆请罪”这两条成语:廉颇因官位低于蔺相如而心怀不满,蔺相如在窄巷中掉转车头避让,廉颇后来赤膊背负荆条登门谢罪。当地相传,这次避让就发生在今天的回车巷一带;”回车巷”之名至今仍留在这座城市的地图上。
According to Xinhua, more than 1,500 idioms are directly or indirectly connected with Handan, and in 2005 the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles named it the Capital of Chinese Idioms and Allusions.
据新华社报道,有一千五百多条成语与邯郸直接或间接相关;二零零五年,中国文联授予邯郸”中国成语典故之都”称号。
A Name Older than Its Idioms
比成语更古老的名字
Handan’s government dates the city’s name to roughly 3,100 years ago, citing the Bamboo Annals’ record that King Zhou of Shang built detached palaces in the area, although the earliest firm written reference to the name comes from the Guliang commentary, for 546 BC, and the characters only settled in their present form under the Qin. Long before that, at Cishan in Wu’an, now part of Handan, people were cultivating millet and keeping pigs and dogs between 7,300 and 8,000 years ago, a thousand years earlier than the Yangshao culture, according to the city government.
据邯郸市政府介绍,邯郸这一地名已有约三千一百年历史,依据是《竹书纪年》记载商纣王曾在此地兴建离宫别馆;不过,这一地名最早见于确切文献的记载,出自《春秋谷梁传》襄公二十七年(公元前五四六年),而”邯郸”二字也要到秦代才基本定型。远在此之前,今属邯郸的武安磁山,距今七千三百年至八千年间,先民已经在培育粟类、饲养猪与狗,比仰韶文化还要早一千年左右。
Handan became the capital of the state of Zhao in 386 BC and remained so for 158 years under eight kings, according to the city government. In 307 BC King Wuling ordered his army to swap long robes for the trousers and short tunics of the steppe nomads and to fight on horseback, helping create what has been described as China’s first large, organised cavalry force; Sima Qian records that he also built a wall from Dai along the Yin Mountains to Gaoque. Congtai Terrace, in the city centre, is said to be where Wuling reviewed troops and watched performances, though the present structure dates from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
据邯郸市政府介绍,公元前三八六年赵国迁都邯郸,此后历经八代君王,定都一百五十八年。公元前三零七年,赵武灵王下令将军队的宽袍大袖改为草原游牧民族的窄袖短衣与长裤,并改习骑射,推动建立了被称为中国历史上第一支大规模成建制骑兵的部队;司马迁还记载,他自代地沿阴山脚下修筑长城,直至高阙。位于市中心的丛台,相传是赵武灵王检阅军队、观赏歌舞之地,不过现存建筑为明清时期修复。
From River Boats to Rail, Steel and a Vault Theft
从河运到铁路、钢铁,再到一桩金库盗案
From the Ming dynasty, the Fuyang River was the main shipping route carrying Handan’s coal, ceramics and local goods to Tianjin, and small cargo boats still made the journey until the mid-1950s; on several bridges in Handan, grooves left by boatmen’s towropes can still be seen in the arch stones, according to China National Radio. The Beijing–Hankou railway opened on 1 April 1906, with Handan station beginning operation, and in October 1945 Handan received its first municipal government.
自明代以来,滏阳河一直是邯郸的煤炭、陶瓷与各类土特产运往天津的主要水路,直到二十世纪五十年代中期,仍有小型货船往返;据中央人民广播电台报道,邯郸境内几座滏阳河桥梁的拱券石上,至今还能看到当年船工拉纤留下的痕迹。一九零六年四月一日京汉铁路全线通车,邯郸站开始运营;一九四五年十月,邯郸首次设立市级行政建制。
Handan Iron and Steel was founded in 1958; Mao Zedong said in 1959 that Handan would be revived and could become a big steel city, and Deng Xiaoping said in 1973 that its coal, iron and electricity could support a steel base like the Ruhr, according to a retrospective published by China International Engineering Consulting Corporation. Handan’s 2024 statistical communiqué records steel product output of 57.538 million tonnes, down 2.6 percent, and a February 2026 report carried by Sina Finance says the old Handan Steel plant has been moved out of the urban area and the city’s air-quality index has left the bottom 20 nationally.
邯郸钢铁厂建于一九五八年;据中国国际工程咨询有限公司刊发的一篇回顾文章,一九五九年毛泽东曾说邯郸要复兴,很有希望建成大钢铁城,一九七三年邓小平又提出,这里有煤有铁有电,可以像鲁尔工业区那样搞个大型钢铁生产基地。邯郸二零二四年统计公报显示,全年钢材产量五千七百五十三万八千吨,同比下降百分之二点六;新浪财经二零二六年二月刊发的一篇报道称,邯钢老区已退城搬迁,全市空气质量综合指数已退出全国”后二十”。
In 2007, two vault keepers at the Agricultural Bank of China’s Handan branch stole ¥50.96 million from its vault between mid-March and mid-April, according to the Ministry of Public Security, and spent more than ¥45 million of it on lottery tickets; the local Yanzhao Metropolis Daily called it the largest insider theft from a bank vault since 1949. Both were arrested within days of fleeing and sentenced to death in August 2007, a ruling the provincial court upheld that September.
二零零七年,中国农业银行邯郸分行的两名金库管库员,于三月中旬至四月中旬期间从金库中盗取现金五千零九十五万六千余元,据公安部网站介绍,其中四千五百多万元被用来购买彩票;当地的《燕赵都市报》称这是一九四九年以来涉案金额最大的银行金库监守自盗案。两人外逃数日后即被抓获,二零零七年八月被一审判处死刑,九月河北省高级人民法院二审维持原判。
Growing Faster than Hebei, Earning Less per Head
增速快于河北全省,人均产值却低于全省
According to Handan’s 2024 statistical communiqué, GDP reached ¥470.43 billion, up 6.1 percent, faster than Hebei province’s 5.4 percent, though per capita output of ¥51,258 was well below the provincial ¥64,352; the permanent population stood at 9.1821 million.
据邯郸市二零二四年统计公报显示,全市GDP达四千七百零四点三亿元,同比增长百分之六点一,快于河北全省百分之五点四的增速,但人均产值五万一千二百五十八元,明显低于全省六万四千三百五十二元;常住人口九百一十八万二千一百人。
Getting to Handan means a high-speed train from Beijing West to Handan East that takes as little as 1 hour 37 minutes; Handan Airport lies about 10 kilometres north of the city centre.
前往邯郸,可从北京西站乘坐高铁直达邯郸东站,最快仅需一小时三十七分钟;邯郸机场位于市中心以北约十公里处。
The stone bridge named for the young man from Yan who tried to learn Handan’s walk still stands in the middle of the city. Originally wooden, it was rebuilt in stone in 1617 and is now closed to traffic and surrounded by a public square.
以那位学习邯郸步态的燕国少年命名的石桥,至今仍立在城市中心。该桥最初为木桥,于一六一七年改建为石桥,如今已不通车,四周辟为市民广场。
