In Chinese Culture
Yelang is best known to modern Chinese because of an incident said to have occurred in the 120s BC. According to the story the king of Yelang, convinced that his kingdom was the greatest in all the world, inquired rhetorically of the Han emperor's envoy, "Which is greater, Yelang or Han?" This gave rise to the Chinese idiom "Yelang thinks too highly of itself" (夜郎自大, Yèláng zì dà). Other sources suggest that Yelang's king was simply copying an earlier statement by the ruler of from the adjacent Kingdom of Dian. Other Chinese sources describe the Yelang people as possessing supernatural powers.
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