Hangzhou tells of King Qian Liu trying to protect the shore while the tide repeatedly troubles the work. In the legend, the water has a temper and the sea can be addressed. A wall needs room to rise; the river seems unwilling to grant it.
Folk tales
The king who faced the tide
On the Qiantang, a sea wall and a flight of arrows share a place in the city’s imagination.
In the same city · Hangzhou ↗Water that would not wait
Arrows over the water
Archers gather along the bank. Their arrows fly towards the incoming tide, and the tide withdraws. The builders can work again. It is a grand, impossible picture, shaped around an ordinary wish: homes and fields should have a secure edge between themselves and the water.
A city remembers its shore
Qian Liu’s connection with sea-wall building belongs to Hangzhou’s history; shooting back the tide belongs to its storytelling. The river and the Qian Kings’ Shrine beside West Lake offer two different settings for the same memory. One keeps moving. The other gives the city a place to remember.
