Annotations
吳下阿蒙
The Old A-Meng of Wu
Korean: 오하아몽Japanese: 呉下の阿蒙（ごかのあもう）Pinyin: wú xià ā méng
Meaning
Someone stuck exactly as they were — most often used in the negative: "no longer the old A-Meng," meaning utterly transformed.
Origin story
This is the twin idiom born from the same scene as "rubbing one’s eyes." After the unlettered general Lü Meng buried himself in books at Sun Quan’s urging, Lu Su was stunned by his transformed insight and exclaimed: "You are no longer the A-Meng of backwater Wu!" A-Meng was Lü Meng’s childhood name — shorthand for his old, unschooled self. Hence the phrase came to mean someone unchanged and unimproved, while its negative — "no longer the old A-Meng" — celebrates a stunning transformation.
Source: Jiangbiao Zhuan (Pei Songzhi’s annotations to Lü Meng’s biography)
People
Modern examples
- Back from studying abroad, he was no longer the A-Meng everyone remembered.
- Cling to the same old ways forever and people will say you never left the backwater.