Wong Tai Sin lot 22 of 100
Chen Miaochang longs for love
Lowest (下下). Grade as given on the named web transcriptions. We have not seen it on a temple printing, and we do not know that the temple prints one.
秋水伊人各一方
天南地北恨偏長
相思試問憑誰寄
不盡淒涼枉斷腸
Autumn water, and the one I think of is far on the other side.
South of heaven and north of earth, the regret runs long.
Try asking who could carry this longing across.
There is no end to the desolation, and the heart breaks for nothing.
What this lot says
The verse is about longing for someone out of reach, with no messenger to carry the feeling. It is a lot of separation and wasted ache.
It is graded lowest. As a prompt for reflection, it asks whether you are waiting on something that cannot be reached, and what you could do instead.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Chen Miaochang longs for love (陳妙常思春)
A traditional allusion named with this lot. We have not traced the story to a source we could read, so we do not retell it here.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author, here read from named web transcriptions. We compared the sites character by character and show every difference. We could not establish whether the sites are independent of one another, and we have not read a temple printing.
Fortune Sticks (fortunesticks.org) (the text shown above)
秋水伊人各一方 / 天南地北恨偏長 / 相思試問憑誰寄 / 不盡淒涼枉斷腸
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Luckeyes (算命眼, luckeyes.com)
秋水伊人各一方 / 天南地北恨偏長 / 相思試問憑誰寄 / 不盡淒涼枉斷腸
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Andy.hk (加賀風水)
秋水依人各一方 / 天南地北恨偏長 / 相思試問憑誰寄 / 不盡悽涼狂斷腸
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 1, character 3: fortunesticks.org and luckeyes.com read 伊; andy.hk reads 依. This is a different character.
- Line 4, character 3: fortunesticks.org and luckeyes.com read 淒; andy.hk reads 悽. This is a different character.
- Line 4, character 5: fortunesticks.org and luckeyes.com read 枉; andy.hk reads 狂. This is a different character.
- The allusion in the lot title: fortunesticks.org names it 陳妙常思春; luckeyes.com names it 陳妙嫦思春; andy.hk names it 王維別友.
- Line 3, character 3: the temple's website (Sik Sik Yuen, taonet.siksikyuen.org.hk) reads 詩 where the three sites read 試.
- Line 4, character 5: the temple's website (Sik Sik Yuen, taonet.siksikyuen.org.hk) reads 幾.
- The allusion in the lot title: the temple's website (Sik Sik Yuen, taonet.siksikyuen.org.hk) names it 他鄉作客.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.