树高千丈，叶落归根

fig. a tree may grow a thousand zhang high, but its leaves return to their roots (proverb) / fig. everything has its ancestral home / in old age, an expatriate returns home

tree / CL:棵[ke1] / to cultivate / to set up

surname Gao

high / tall / above average / loud / your (honorific)

thousand

see 鞦韆|秋千[qiu1 qian1]

measure of length, ten Chinese feet (3.3 m) / to measure / husband / polite appellation for an older male

to be in harmony

leaf / page / lobe / (historical) period / classifier for small boats / a surname

to leave out / to be missing / to leave behind or forget to bring / to lag or fall behind

colloquial reading for 落[luo4] in certain compounds

to fall or drop / (of the sun) to set / (of a tide) to go out / to lower / to decline or sink / to lag or fall behind / to fall onto / to rest with / to get or receive / to write down / whereabouts / settlement

surname Gui

to return / to go back to / to give back to / (of a responsibility) to be taken care of by / to belong to / to gather together / (used between two identical verbs) despite / to marry (of a woman) (old) / division on the abacus with a one-digit divisor

a falling leaf returns to the roots (idiom); everything has its ancestral home / In old age, an expatriate longs to return home.

to return home (after a lifetime's absence) / to go back to one's roots

root / basis / classifier for long slender objects, e.g. cigarettes, guitar strings / CL:條|条[tiao2] / radical (chemistry)