Page 384-396, Danzhou

Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

Page 384 - 396

Bustling Danzhou city 儋州

Checking out at ten on Sunday morning, I manage to catch the Danzhou-bound bus fifty minutes later. Its fare is 18 RMB. Cooling clients with air-conditioning, the twenty-five seater runs slowly for the first fifteen minutes, picking up half the number of projected passengers.

At eleven-fifteen, it jolts off along the main Renmin North Road that soon widens into the clean six-lane Changjiang Road. After a distance of about three kilometres, the bus turns right into 225 National Road, which is undergoing expansion and bitumen surfacing.

An hour later, the road is smooth and unhindered. Although the bus clock indicates noon time, which should be hot externally, the internal temperature is a comfortable twenty-five degrees Celsius. The unmarked four-lane highway is bordered with tall and slender trees which, together with the lush sparsely populated agricultural fields, attest to the fertility and productivity of the western plain. Occasionally dashing by, common fruit trees offer banana, papaya, and rose apple, which are supplementary zest to the residents’ simple diet.

To ease us along our long journey, the driver has downloaded a disc into his DVD recorder, screening a local opera on the overhead television set. As Danzhou dialect does not sound anywhere close to Hainanese dialect, I cannot understand a word. However, pictures speak louder than words. The story is tragic, which leaves me deliberating why the driver should play such a melancholic drama when a comedy would uplift our tired spirit.

An old man accidentally fell to his death after being pushed by a rapacious landlord. Eighteen years later, the former’s two sons, now grown up, left their family home to seek their fortune but met with disasters instead. To gain employment in a rich family’s home, one son then disguised himself as a woman.

Unfortunately, after half an hour, the bus reaches the terminus and the show is abruptly terminated. Frustratingly, I do not get to know its finale. And neither would you, the reader!

Danzhou (儋州) City has a population in 2010 of 932,362, which is almost half that of Haikou City. Generally, the land is flat but fertile, permitting it to be included in “China Top 100 Agricultural City”. Its highest peak, Shamao Ridge, is only seven hundred and fifty-two metres above sea level. Its coast of two hundred and forty kilometres faces Guangdong Province across Qiongzhou Strait.

Two thousand years earlier, this region was known as “Dan’er” (儋耳; Drooping Ear) because its inhabitants, like the Dayaks and Kayans of Southeast Asia, had pendant-carrying ear lobes.

Our bus reaches Nada (那大), the capital of Danzhou City, at one in the early afternoon. Its terminus is, as I will soon discover, only two hundred metres from Rongxing Hotel (荣兴酒店). Both are on the same side of Zhongxing Road (中兴大道) but are separated by a roundabout and 225 National Road. Ignorant of that fact, I enquire the fare to the hotel. A trishaw lady instantly quotes 4 RMB. Mockingly, another lady shouts “5 RMB”. I suspect something is amiss. A local boy is smiling, confirming to me my foolishness. Not knowing the actual distance or direction, I naturally accept the lower offer. The nightly hotel tariff is 128 RMB because I am staying two nights; otherwise, it is 148 RMB. I put 600 RMB as deposit.

After studying the small map on the hotel brochure, I search for a laundry. A gentleman points to a road but I cannot find the shop. Like those in Haikou, the streets here are wide, clean, and bustling with people. Their walking pace is fast, as if they have important appointments to attend. This is surprising to me because I expect a more relaxed lifestyle on a Sunday.

Re-tracing my way to my hotel, I learn the location of a laundry from a pleasant-looking taxi driver. He stands among the fifteen or so cabs and trishaws waiting for passengers in the narrow car park opposite my hotel entrance. I negotiate a 350-RMB deal with him to take me to Baimajing, Zhonghe, and Yangpu the following day. After thanking him, I enter the familiar Do & Mi family restaurant at the corner to have my late lunch at three.

Located mid-way along the short Dongpo Road, the laundry charges a reasonable 6 RMB for a piece of clothing. I hand over eight pieces. Hers is the only laundry in town, the proprietress says.

Nanfeng (南丰镇), the little town that remembers Lady Xian

With enough time at five in the evening, I return to the car park. One of the milling taxi drivers approaches me, enquiring and then quoting a fare of 150 RMB to the Xian Furen temple in Nanfeng town. Unknown to me, the young driver in his late twenties or early thirties has two luckless passengers in his cab, patiently waiting for two others to some destination. Being unceremoniously ejected, they are naturally angry, loudly voicing their resentment. Partly responsible for their plight, I feel embarrassed.

Instead of forty kilometres as floated by one of the hotel receptionists, the temple is only about fifteen kilometres south by road, which makes the journey extremely expensive. A fair price should be 120 RMB or less. The whole trip takes only an hour because I am back at the fast food restaurant at six in the evening.

Nanfeng is a very small, sparsely populated town that sprung from a country village. The buildings are mainly two-storey and constructed, perhaps, after the Second World War. They are old, their white paint turning dirty and grey with age and weathering. After a pedestrian’s direction, we drive on. The street narrows into a constricted and littered lane, which is passable by only one car. On each side of the lane is a row of houses, mainly single-storey.

Located on the left row as we enter, it was, I conjecture, previously a residential house but was partly rebuilt later and converted into a temple. My driver even misses it and has to reverse at the dead-end on the northern edge of Songtao Reservoir (松涛水库), which I snatch a quick glimpse of.

Some passing residents again point out the location. It is not the Xian Furen temple that I wish to see. The front is a dirty-purple coloured wall with a small steel gate. Above the shut gate is a small similarly-coloured tiled roof. Beneath it is a red paper panel with black Chinese characters: 冼太廟 (Xian Tai Miao; Xian Tai Temple).

The gate is not locked. No one is inside. Young Driver opens it. The courtyard is bare. The door to the former residence had been demolished, thus creating a sheltered hall. On the right wall are four large frames enclosing information about the life of Lady Xian; on the left wall are some decorative cloth scrolls.

Against the back wall is a table-like pedestal supporting a wooden cabinet-altar which contains a small statue of about half a metre high of Lady Xian. She is sculptured as an older woman with a slightly elongated smiling face. Wearing a colourful traditional headgear and a red costume, she is seated between two smaller figures. On the pedestal are also a painting and a print of her. At the right corner are four drums, each about half a metre in diameter, which would be played, I suppose, during the celebration of her birthday.

Perhaps rejoicing from his anticipated fortune, Young Driver lights an incense stick and, clutching it with both hands, reverentially bows before the goddess. Having done so, he plunges it into the bronze censer on the wooden table in front of the altar. While I am photographing the temple curios, he is curious, seeking my purpose in visiting this temple. I briefly explain my possible link to Lady Xian’s husband as we leave.

Consisting of two lanes, the country road is narrow. Thick forests thrive on either side, confirming an agrarian region of few families. Yet, here in this small country town, they have heard of her heroism, and even worshipped her. A remarkable woman she must be. Is she my ancestor?

Renowned poet Su Shi (苏轼), academy at Zhonghe (东坡书院在中和镇)

Fu Si Ba (符司扒) meets me as agreed at nine-thirty in the morning. Driving along Meiyang and 308 Provincial Road, he steers towards Zhonghe, which is about forty kilometres northwest of Nada. Zhonghe is situated on Beimen’s (Northern Door) left bank, the juncture where the river from Songtao Reservoir, flowing northwestwards through Danzhou downtown, splits into two to drain into Danzhou Bay (also known as Yangpu or Chappu Bay), four kilometres northwest of Zhonghe.

Up until the eleventh century, this ancient capital of Danzhou district was also a seaport. But it gradually became landlocked because of the silt flushed down by the inland flood water.

Almost reaching the historic town, we depart from the main road and enter into a narrow country road that is overwhelmed by green meadows and trees. Paved with bitumen, the village road was more likely an earthen track when Su Dongpo landed here nine hundred years ago. Back then, prior to the fall of Northern Song, Zhonghe’s population numbered probably in the thousands or tens of thousands, living off the yields from the rich soil and uncontaminated sea.

On the outskirt of town was the fledgling school established by the venerable poet and his son in 1097 in the home built for them by a sympathetic local magistrate, Zhang Zhonghe. Four centuries later, this school was renamed in Su’s honour as Dongpo Academy of Classical Learning.

Beside the Academy’s car park is a narrow nature strip, where six young children in casual clothing are sitting on the top of a large spherical boulder. Aged nine or ten years, four of them are girls. Teasing one another, they are happy, without a care in the world. They are such innocent and lovely people. Are they on school vacation?

On the other side of the road is a large pond that seems like the slow-flowing Beimen River nearby. In full bloom, the infesting water hyacinths floating on the water surface add attractive colour to their green leaves with pale-purple flowers. Beyond the serpentine flow is also an expanse of green, the fields and fruiting trees of local farmers.

Taking a cursory glance at me, the elderly receptionist offers me the “Seniors” concession ticket costing 15 RMB. I am actually prepared to pay the full fee. As I step through the entrance, a small pavilion stands before me. The three characters painted stylistically, I decipher, declare that it is the Zaijiuting (载酒亭; literally, Carrying Beer Pavilion). Looking at the pavilion, I reflect: did Su Dongpo and his few friends or visitors spend some quiet moments under its pre-renovated roof, sipping bowls of rice wine and ruminating over the life that was? Two stone tablets nearby provide a brief introduction: one is in English while the other in Chinese.

“Dongpo Academy, originally called the Hall of Carried Wine, was founded in the fourth year of the Shaosheng era of the Northern Song Dynasty (1097).   It was here that the literary giant, Su Dongpo, propagated the culture of Central China, during his three-year residence in Danzhou. The site was maintained and expanded during successive dynasties. In the fourth year of the Taiding era of the Yuan Dynasty (1327), it was renamed Dongpo Memorial Temple. And in the twenty-seventh year of the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty (1548) the name was again changed, this time to Dongpo Academy.”

Nine hundred years have elapsed. As the tablets suggest, the features that I happily perceive were, I am afraid to say, untouched and unseen by the venerable poet; yet I can sense the natural surrounding and the fresh air that he breathed.

Flanking the pavilion are two small ponds. I briefly pause to admire the layout. The green water is stagnant but filled with beautiful purplish lotus flowers. Pots of reddish-purple bougainvilleas sit on the decorative safety walls around the ponds. Excitement carries me towards the small single-storey traditional Chinese building. This is the Zaijiutang (载酒堂; literally, Carrying Beer Hall), the lecture hall of Su Dongpo, who regularly congregated here with his friends. In it are seven stone tablets on each side of the screen at the entrance. The tributes on these memorials were written by notables. I cannot comprehend the words craved on them. What they say should be interesting.

I cross the courtyard to the building beyond. In the courtyard is, on my right, a “Feng Huang” tree. A “Phoenix” tree! This is the tree that phoenixes will only roost, according to legend. A stone plaque grounded near the base of its trunk records that it was planted in 1738, which makes it more than two hundred and seventy years old. It belongs to the “Paulowniaceae” family. In summer, its big red flowers should delight spectators. Its soft wood is used for making soundboards of “guqin”, which is a Chinese seven-string zither without bridges, and “pipa”, which is a Chinese four-string upright guitar. The deciduous tree may mature to fifteen metres in height. On my left is a mango tree bearing many green mangoes. It too was planted the same year, the information on another plaque. I stare at a fruit longingly; temptation threatens to overpower my resisting soul.

Inside the second building, the Great Hall, are three life-size statues. Protecting them from the soiled hands of inquisitive tourists is a low railing. To satisfy our innate disposition to tap or touch them, an online government article specifies their composition: fibreglass. Two of the figures are sitting while one is standing. In the middle is seated Su Dongpo, attired in a light-blue gown. His left hand is holding an open book while his right is stroking his beard.

Standing in light-green gown is his twenty-five year old son. Unmarried, Su Guo (1072-1123) voluntarily spent six years in exile with his father in Huizhou (Guangdong) and Hainan. A gifted poet too, he is the younger of the two sons of Dongpo’s second wife. Dongpo’s first wife bore him one. Holding a rolled paperback in his right hand, a bearded native in dark-blue gown looks confused. Su the elder was trying to educate him.

Dongpo was exiled to Hainan from 1097 to 1100, a period of almost four years. He was sixty-one when he landed with his son. Even though Su Shi was a disgraced political exile, the magistrate in Danzhou was a decent man who treated him very well, even offering his official residence as home. For this, he was ignominiously sacked when an imperial inspector visited and reported the lavish treatment to the emperor.

Moving to Zhonghe, where he lived in a hut near a Li village, Dongpo befriended and won the respect of the local families through a school which he had established at his residence. Tried as he might, he however could not change their staunch tradition. He would have wondered if he was destined to live out the remaining days of his life in this savage land where the natives did not imbibe medicinal brew to relieve their illness but offered shamanistic oxen sacrifices to the gods. Later afflicted with bouts of malaria, the emaciated scholar experimented with herbal cures, although the ingredients were scarce. Food was in short supply too because the island had not recovered from a few harvestless years after an unforeseen prolonged drought.

Fortunately for his reputation, Dongpo was rehabilitated and recalled by Huizong, the newly-installed eighth Song emperor. Unfortunately, on his way to Changzhou the following year, he died from fever and intestinal disorders.

Born in Meishan, Sichuan, in January 1037 during the fifteenth year of the fourth Song emperor’s forty-one year reign (1022–1063), Su Shi came from a fairly wealthy family, which enabled him to pursue a scholarly life. Despite parental pressure to marry at seventeen, he loved his wife Wang Fu, who died a decade later. In 1057, he passed the imperial jinshi (进士) examinations, ranking second. His younger brother Su Zhe also finished among the top. Their future seemed bright, the examination system sieving out the grain from the chaff. The average age of examinees was thirty-five but some were even in their sixties because age and past failures were no barrier. Su Shi was only twenty.

Familial deaths retarded his career progression. His mother’s departure in 1057 confined him in Meishan for the Confucian-obligatory mourning, during which time he prepared himself for the decree examination in which he subsequently excelled in 1061. Of the forty candidates who passed the twenty-two decree examinations personally supervised by the Song emperors since 964, none was conferred the first or second rank, making the third rank of Su Shi and a previous candidate the highest ever awarded. Su Zhe achieved the fourth rank.

Alas, intellectual brilliance had no immediate recompense in a bureaucracy bogged by seniority, friendship, and royal patronage. For a period of three years, the promising scholar was a notary in Fengxiang (west of Chang’an) before the demise of both his wife (1065) and his father (1066) brought him home once again until 1068.

Emperor Renzong’s forty-one year reign came to an end in 1063. Aged fifty-two, the ruler died without an heir. His nephew Emperor Yingzong reigned for only a short period from 1063 to 1067, dying suddenly at a young age of almost thirty-five. Yingzong’s son and successor too died at a young age of thirty-six but after a longer reign of eighteen years - from 1067 to 1085.

1069 was a year that would spark an unending conflict between traditionalists and modernists for three long decades over the management of the national economy that was stagnating and then in debt from, amongst other causes, high defence expenditure. Conflicts and tension with the Tanguts of Western Xia and Qidans of Liao dynasty required a regular army of more than a million men, a huge financial strain on the vast empire of 45.4 million.

Returning to the paralysed capital with his brother, Su Shi was appointed as a staff in the Investigation Bureau of the Censorate. Coincidentally, the young twenty-year old emperor Shenzong appointed Wang Anshi (王安石) to the Council of State (or Grand Council).

Aged forty-eight, Wang was an accomplished official, brimming with creative ideas. Born into a family with ten children, the third eldest scion came in fourth among the successful jinshi candidates for his year. He was only twenty-one. Thereafter, he held a successful career in his southern Jiangxi province until acclamation of his talent reached the emperor’s ear. Like the later Su Shi, Wang was a Renaissance man, and one of China’s greatest poets. That should not be surprising: the zenith of literary achievement was more often rooted on constructive diligence and intelligence.

Upon his promotion, chief councillor Wang introduced many socio-economic reforms: some were good, some bad. Government expenditure was prudently reduced by trimming the regular army from 1,162,000 to 568,688 while defence and security was ensured through a superiorly-trained militia of ultimately 7,182,028 men. That was good.

Adults, especially from farming households, were freed from public service obligation (upon a payment). That was good because they could consequently devote their time to doing what they knew best. The land tax was equitably reformed, which prevented tax evasion by the wealthy. That was good because they should be paying their due.

Replacing questions on poetry and rhapsody with questions on socio-economic issues, the examination system shifted the focus of the education system. That was good because the examinees would be applying their minds on viable solutions to the urgent matters such as the extant economic stagnation and debt encumbering their society and the threatening kingdoms along the northern border.

Implementing these New Policies required the increase in number of bureaucrats from twenty-four thousand in 1067 to thirty-four thousand by 1080, a sharp jump of forty-one percent. That was bad because of the sudden growth in public expenditure and opportunities for bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency. The court gained monopoly of banking and commerce (for example, the profitable salt industry). That was bad because lack of competition led to production inefficiency, officials’ corruption, and higher prices.

Profiteering from sales of a basic necessity like salt was deplorable. Taken for granted by us today, salt was an extremely precious commodity in ancient times. Peasants needed salt to cure and preserve fish, meat, and vegetable in anticipation of famine; emperors and courtiers sought salt monopolies to enrich themselves.

Politically conservative, Su Shi condemned almost all of those reforms in his memorials to the emperor. His allusion in a poem to salt scarcity resulting from the treasury’s monopoly was later cited as part of the treason case against him.

An old man of seventy, sickle at his waist,

Feels guilty the spring mountain bamboo and bracken are sweet.

It's not that the music of Shao has made him lose his sense of taste.

It's just that he's eaten his food for three months without salt.

Acrimonious relations with the older reformist prompted Su Shi to request a transfer. He became the vice-prefect of Hangzhou for three years from 1071. By now, he had married his late wife’s cousin Wang Runzhi (and would soon redeem a twelve-year old courtesan Zhao Yun, whom he would later take as concubine). Completing his term, he became the prefect of Mizhou in Shandong (1074-1076).

Meanwhile, his poems lampooning the chief councillor’s reforms made him well-known. When a famine left many farmers unable to repay the loans promoted overzealously by officials at the government’s twenty-four percent interest rate (which was “generous” relative to the usurious rates charged by wealthy landowners), Wang Anshi became the conservatives’ scapegoat and was sacked in 1075 by the emperor. His factional court supporters would bide their time to exact revenge.

As prefect of Xuzhou (in northern Jiangsu) from 1077 to 1079, Su Shi warned Shenzong of the potential national instability arising from central Xuzhou’s vulnerability to banditry attacks and the recent Hebei market closure. Regional capital Pengcheng was only seventy li (thirty-five kilometres) southwest of the Linguo industrial area, where thirty-six smelters were operating and thousands of industrious employees, protected by few military guards, were almost defenceless against outlaws. If retrenched through their companies’ bankruptcy from the exclusion of Hebei market to their product, the workers might even turn bandits. Su Shi proposed the Hebei trade resumption as well as training of selected employees as militia.

Wang Anshi’s supporters finally succeeded in their collusion in 1079. Su Shi was arrested and interrogated, allegedly for stirring civil unrest and slandering the emperor and his royal officials.

Fortunately, Dongpo’s prominent defenders saved him from a certain execution. Shenzong exiled him to a small village in Huangzhou, Hubei. Without a salary and almost penniless, he was later given a small plot on the eastern slope of the mountain above the village.

There he lived, writing many of his best poems under his nom de guerre “Dongpo Jushi” (“Resident of Eastern Slope”). Had Shenzong not die six years later (and Wang Anshi a year after him), Su Shi would have dwelled on Eastern Slope for perhaps the remaining years of his life.

Heeding the advice of the empress dowager and newly-appointed chief councillor Sima Guang, nine-year old emperor Zhezong in 1086 recalled Su Shi to the capital. Sima died soon after. Su Shi served in the Hanlin Academy for three years, then seeking a transfer from the constant bureaucratic bickering around him.

In Hangzhou, the newly-appointed prefect swiftly embarked on a series of public works to elevate the peasants’ hardship. The 1075-76 famine and epidemic had lead to the death of half a million people in the prefecture as well as three hundred thousand in Suzhou. The disastrous consequences still lingered a decade later. Su Shi founded an infirmary with fifty taels of silver from his savings; he petitioned the court to decrease taxes; and he appealed for public donation to open clinics.

Most importantly, he employed some two hundred thousand peasants to dredge the stagnant, weed-logged, 5.6 square-kilometre West Lake with the fund dispatched by the dowager. The excavated mud was used to fortify the bank and build a dike, later named in his honour as Su Causeway. His philanthropy earned him deep respect among the residents. Depicted on the one-RMB note, West Lake is now a World Heritage site.

With the dowager’s death in 1093, Su Shi’s last shred of protection disintegrated. The seventh Song emperor reinstituted Wang Anshi’s reforms and exiled his elderly official initially to Huizhou in Guangdong and then in 1097 to Hainan Island. Before setting off for Hainan, Su Shi sent his two older sons and their families to Yixing in Changzhou, where he still owned a plot of land.

He was in Hainan for more than three years when twenty-four year old Zhezong died in 1100. The latter’s eighteen-year old half-brother, emperor Huizong, recalled the exile.

Su Shi died shortly in August 1101 in Jiangsu on his way to Chengdu for his new post, his three sons grieving at the unexpected twist of events. His first wife had died when he was thirty years old while his second wife and concubine had died during the five years preceding his Hainan exile.

In a sense, he was fortunate. He did not live to experience the traumatic invasion of northern China by the Manchurian Jurchens, who would take as prisoners the ill-fated Huizong and his entire household. With Huizong’s captivity, the collapse of the larger Song Empire (which later historians term as “Northern Song”) would be irreversible.

Going through the narrow moon gate, I enter another section of the historic site. Within the meticulously landscaped and manicured garden is an ancient tablet beside an equally, if not more ancient well. In traditional Chinese characters, the information states: 欽師泉 (Qin Shuai Quan; Qinshuai Spring). “Spring”, the only character I readily recognize, conjures a vision of the arduous collective labour by Dongpo and his Li friends in constructing this well in mutual appreciation - for his educational effort among their community, and for their assistance in building him a hut and home.

Enhancing my delight as I walk along one of the straight litter-free pathways are the huge ball-shaped shrubs, a palm with its drooping fronds, and tables and chairs conveniently set under the cool shade of thick overhanging branches and foliage of perhaps mango trees. The front door of a small single-storey traditional Chinese building is opened, revealing a huge statue of a seated Dongpo. On the lintel of the entrance is a panel with the characters 欽師堂 (Qin Shuai Tang). I enter. Behind Dongpo is a framed white calligraphy with the words: 一代夂宗 (Yi dai zhi zong). Robed in a light-blue gown, he is looking ahead. His left hand reposes on the arm of the chair while his right hand is holding an unopened book.

Hanging on the surrounding walls are precious calligraphies and paintings, protected within glass showcases which also enclose and exhibit three tiers of small contorted rock. These must be ancient rocks. Did the avid rock collector pick them from the nearby beach and surrounding countryside during his meditative walks?

Noises echo from a second building nearby. We walk towards it, to the assembly of thirteen. They are filming a local television drama series, using the building as the background. In dark-blue police uniforms with white epaulettes, two men in their thirties are standing on the entrance steps. A third man of similar age is standing behind a table that is placed in front of the closed door. Above the door is a black wooden signboard giving the name of the building: 迎賓堂 (Ying Bin Tang; Greeting-Guest Hall). Obviously the villainous magistrate, the gentleman wearing a faked moustache, black hat, brown sunglasses, pale golden-yellow traditional Chinese shirt, and light-brown scholar gown rises from his seat behind his desk, and sings a judgement in local Danzhou dialect to a kneeling woman. From different angles, two young men are filming with their hand-held videocameras. Dressed informally and wearing a pair of slippers, a young lady is frequently checking her hand-held photometer, assessing the intensity of light. Occasionally, she interrupts the recording and holds a discussion with the director, who has been silently looking through his script.

At one corner of the park is a life-size statue of Su Dongpo standing on a pedestal surrounded by hedges, which prevent me from touching it. A stone tablet names this corner as “Western Park”. This statue resembles the one in Wugong Temple. The poses are identical. The difference is only detectable when I examine the book held by Dongpo’s right hand.

The book in the Wugong statue is longer, its upper side reaching his shoulder. It is stiff and appears to have come straight from the printing press. The book in this statue is shorter, its upper side reaching his armpit. It has been well-used. The Wugong statue is made of fibreglass while the one in front of me is, according to the tablet, solid bronze. Dongpo is wearing a bamboo hat and wooden sandals, the information continues. Perhaps this statue is the prototype, of which the one in Wugong Temple is a copy.

As we leave, I look once again at the pond and Beimen River. I sense the awe which Dongpo must have felt during the final years of his life, the beauty of Hainan whispered in his poems. The flowing water that quietly drains into the nearby bay soothes my soul. It must have done so also on his. Perhaps his Buddhist belief, fostered during his first exile, helped to ease his confused mind over his alternating banishments and reinstatements as the emperors and empress dowagers played political ping-pong over Wang Anshi’s socio-economic reforms for an apparently central-planning welfare state.

2,000 years ago, Danzhou was known

as “Dan’er” (儋耳; Drooping Ear)

两千年前，儋州被称为“儋耳”.