Wansong Academy
Ming-dynasty Confucian academy on a lakeside hill, now Saturdays' open-air matchmaking market for hopeful parents.
This guide to Wansong Academy in Hangzhou opens on a Saturday morning ritual: parents pinning folders of their grown children's statistics to railings and trees, hoping a stranger's mother stops to read. It traces the academy back to its founding in 1498 as one of Hangzhou's four great Confucian academies, where imperial-exam hopefuls once studied under scholars honored even by emperors. Along the way it follows the legend of Zhu Yingtai, a girl who disguised herself as a boy to study here and fell for a classmate she could never marry. Listen for how a matchmaking market found its way onto the grounds of an old exam school.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.