樂不思蜀
Too Happy to Miss Shu
Meaning
So content that one forgets one’s homeland — losing oneself in present comfort and forgetting who you are and where you came from.
Origin story
After Shu fell, the last emperor Liu Shan was moved to the Wei capital and made Duke of Anle. The strongman Sima Zhao threw a banquet and pointedly staged the music and dances of Shu. The old Shu ministers all bowed their heads in tears — but Liu Shan laughed and enjoyed the show. "Do you not miss Shu?" Sima Zhao asked. "It is so pleasant here that I do not think of Shu," Liu Shan replied. The answer dissolved all suspicion, and Liu Shan lived out his days in peace. Folly, or survival wisdom? Debated to this day — but the phrase stuck for forgetting one’s roots in comfort.
Source: Han Jin Chunqiu (Pei Songzhi’s annotations to Liu Shan’s biography)
People
Modern examples
- Life at the overseas branch was so comfortable he forgot headquarters entirely — and missed his window to return.
- Many companies bask in a short-term hit and forget the core business that made them.