Hangzhou Anthology

Beside West Lake, the old capital of the Southern Song. No itineraries here — only lake and hills, remembered.

Scroll, to the lake

读法How to read

Begin with the lake, walk toward the city

Hangzhou is a city of the lake. West Lake has hills on three sides and the city on the fourth — the hills are not steep but graceful, the water not deep but broad. The lake is Hangzhou’s eyes and brows, and also its measure: however large the city, that still is the lake.

Read this volume along the lake. Begin with the lake itself — the Su and Bai causeways, the three pools mirroring the moon; then read the hills around it, and the tea slopes in the hills; then walk toward the city: Lingyin, Xixi, the canal, the Qiantang, Wu Hill; then read the human world the lake has raised: Longjing, silk, craft, the dishes of Hangzhou; and last, read the city’s history: Liangzhu’s earlier city, the founding of Wuyue, the Southern Song’s borrowed peace, and the human world after the capital was laid down.

This site sells no tickets and pushes no routes. If, after reading, a lake and a city take root in your mind, it has done its work.

The hills around the lake: between eyes and brows

四卷Four volumes

Open the volumes

Chapter I — Landscape

Landscape

West Lake, the hills around it, and the tea slopes in the hills.

OPEN

Chapter II — Places

Places

Temple, wetland, canal, river, the hill in the city — five short lives.

OPEN

Chapter III — Craft

Craft

Longjing tea, silk, crafts still in the hand, Hangzhou dishes — the human world raised by lake and hills.

OPEN

Chapter IV — History

History

From Liangzhu to the human world — how a city became a capital, and how it laid the title down.

OPEN

Sub-volumes

Lin’an

Lin'an

Beneath Tianmu’s canopy, in the old homeland of Wuyue. No itineraries here — only mountains, remembered.

“West Lake compares to the fair Xizi — light or heavy make-up, always becoming.”

— Su Shi, “Drinking on the Lake, First Clear then Rain”