thăng điệu lai kinh
Definition
- Historical Phrase:
- To be promoted and summoned to the capital: A classical Vietnamese phrase describing an official in the imperial bureaucracy who is both promoted in rank and ordered to travel to the imperial capital to assume a new position or receive an imperial audience.
Usage Examples
- Historical/Classical Context:
- Sau nhiều năm cai trị tốt ở tỉnh, quan ấy đã được thăng điệu lai kinh. (After many years of good governance in the province, that mandarin was promoted and summoned to the capital.)
- Chiếu chỉ của vua ghi rõ: "Thăng điệu lai kinh tức khắc." (The king's edict stated clearly: "Be promoted and summoned to the capital immediately.")
Advanced Usage
- This phrase is almost exclusively found in historical texts, classical literature, or in modern writing that deliberately uses a classical style to evoke the imperial past. It is not used in contemporary spoken language.
Word Breakdown (Analysis)
- Thăng (升): to promote, to ascend (in rank).
- Điệu (調): to transfer, to move (a person, often an official).
- Lai (來): to come.
- Kinh (京): the capital city.
- The phrase thus literally means "promoted, transferred to come to the capital."
Synonyms
- To be promoted and called to the court: A near-equivalent English phrase capturing the dual action of promotion and summons.
- To receive a promotion to the capital: A simpler, modern paraphrase.
Notes
- This is a fixed, four-character phrase (từ Hán Việt) inherited from classical Chinese administrative language. It describes a specific procedure within a historical bureaucratic system.
- Understanding this phrase requires knowledge of the historical context of imperial Vietnam (or China), where the central court in the capital managed provincial officials through such appointments and summons.