Supply: SCMP (7/12/17)
Why Chinese towns are so keen to lay claim to poets, philosophers and emperors
By Amy Yan
A temple honouring Liu Bang in Pei county. Picture: Handout
The case is the newest instance of cities or counties on the mainland claiming hyperlinks to well-known historical Chinese language figures corresponding to emperors, philosophers or poets as they attempt to lure funding and vacationers.
Feng and Pei county administered by the town of Xuzhou in Jiangsu province have for years laid declare to the Emperor Gaozu, who was born as Liu Bang. He was the primary emperor of the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220) and there are buildings and vacationer spots linked to Liu in each counties.
Now the town authorities has dominated on the matter.
[In Mao Zedong’s hometown, statue industry loses shine but faith in the ‘Great Helmsman’ remains]
Town’s three-year plan, signed off by the central authorities’s State Council, says Feng county will probably be listed as Liu’s dwelling city and be developed as a vacationer centre. Pei county will probably be developed as a part of Xuzhou’s central financial system and as a serious coal base within the province.
Web customers from Feng county are delighted and have referred to as on their neighbours in Pei county to cease arguing about Liu’s origins. Most historians agree that Liu was born in Fengyi in what’s now Feng county, but it surely was previously administered underneath Pei county.
Folks in Pei county, nonetheless, are nonetheless sad.
A temple to Liu Bang in Pei county. Picture: Handout
Liu Zhongxin, the vice-chairman of the Han Dynasty Tradition Analysis Institute in Pei county advised the information web site Thepaper.cn his space ought to nonetheless be named Liu Bang’s dwelling city.
“Liu Bang was born in Fengyi, however grew up in Pei county. His profession began in Pei county,” he mentioned.
Feng county has been so eager to money in on its hyperlinks to Liu that one city beforehand tried to vary its title from Zhaozhuang to Jinliuzhai a number of years in the past to replicate its hyperlinks to the emperor. Officers mentioned its title didn’t spotlight its identification as Liu’s dwelling city, however the plan failed.
Liu Simin, vice-secretary common of the Beijing Tourism Affiliation, advised the Thepaper.cn it was regular that the 2 counties ought to battle for the title of Liu’s hometown. They have been competing for hyperlinks to “celebrities” who’re important for areas’ advertising, Liu mentioned.
Different disputes over hyperlinks to well-known Chinese language, embody cities that declare ties to the eighth-century poet Li Bai. Areas in Sichuan, Hubei and Gansu provinces declare to be the house city of Li.
[Forbidden City? Not if head of China’s top museum has any say]
5 central and southern provinces declare hyperlinks to the Qiao sisters, two beauties through the Three Kingdoms interval about 1,800 years in the past.
Even characters from fiction are the supply of dispute.
Three locations in Shandong and Anhui provinces declare ties with the fictional character Ximen Qing, a well-known villain within the two novels The Golden Lotus and The Water Margin.
