Lin'an Anthology

West of Hangzhou lies Lin’an, a town of mountains. The Tianmu range folds in from southern Anhui and eases eastward, coming to rest at the edge of Hangzhou. Tianmu is a divide: streams on the north slope join the Tiaoxi and empty into Lake Tai; streams on the west slope join the Changhua and enter the Qiantang. However high the mountains, that long is their water.

Read Lin’an from the mountains. Begin at the summits, with great trees and seas of cloud; then come down — past a source, a canyon, a lake, to the wharves of the old town. Once water leaves the mountain, it becomes the human world. The human world has its goods: hickory nuts, bloodstone, tenmoku bowls. And it has its history: a man of Lin’an named Qian Liu walked out of these hills and carried the two characters “Lin’an” into a thousand years of history books.

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