Iza Ding in The Ideas Letter:
Sometime in the mid-12th century, a Chinese poet named Lin Sheng traveled 365 kilometers from his hometown Pingyang to Lin’an—what is now Hangzhou, a city on the southeast coast, where the tech giant Alibaba is based.
Lin stayed at a B&B and roamed the city for days. He climbed various hills, drifted through Buddhist temples, sampled an assortment of crabs, shrimps, lamb, and sweet rice, all marinated in alcohol—a culinary specialty of the region—and, like today’s tourists, spent a significant amount of time on and around the impossibly beautiful West Lake, the sin and soul of Hangzhou.
Hangzhou is glorious on summer nights. The lake lies sultrily within the warm embrace of the hills, blue as sapphire. When the breezes pick up in the evening, as they always do, the water undulates like dancers’ long, silky sleeves, gleaming with reflections of candles in the boats and pavilions, homes on the hills, and lanterns carried by residents. And there was singing and dancing, lots of singing and dancing, deep into the orange night. Our delicate poet found himself both entranced and uneasy.
One morning, after the merriment had melted into dawn, Lin rose from his bed, inked his brush, and wrote on his chamber wall. This tiny poem, 28 characters light, would be memorized by every schoolchild in China almost a millennium later.
Hills beyond blue hills,
Pavilions beyond pavilions.
When will the singing and dancing on West Lake cease?
Travelers, drunk on a warm breeze,
Have mistaken Hangzhou for Bianzhou.
Bianzhou is today’s Kaifeng city, 900 kilometers southwest of Hangzhou in the inland province of Henan. Kaifeng’s GDP per capita in 2023 was about $7,500, one-third of Hangzhou’s.
More here.
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