What are four gentlemen in flowers and three friends in cold?

Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum. Known as the "four gentlemen in flowers", the characteristics are: pride, quietness, firmness and lightness. Plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum have become the symbols of China people's feelings about things, and they are also the most common themes in poems about objects and literati paintings, which are rooted in their yearning for this aesthetic personality realm. * * * The same feature is self-improvement. Tsinghua stays out of it and doesn't kiss up. Mei Lan and Zhu Ju occupy four seasons, and China literati regard them as "four gentlemen", which shows their understanding of time order and the meaning of life. Gao Meijia proudly stands on the shore, orchids are elegant and ethereal, bamboo is modest and restrained, and chrysanthemums are chaste in Leng Yan. China people load their true feelings in a flower, a grass, a stone and a tree, thus making flowers, trees, grass and stones break away from or expand their original meanings and become symbols and metaphors of personality.

Three friends in cold years refer to pine, bamboo and plum. These three plants are named after their tenacious vitality in the cold winter. They are symbols of noble personality in China traditional culture and metaphors of loyalty and friendship.

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