Tang Paradise

This guide to Tang Paradise in Xi'an opens beside the pool of Qujiang, at a graduation banquet for a scholar named He Shican, who had just passed the grueling jinshi exam that could turn a commoner into an official for life. Tradition made new graduates foot the bill for their own banquet, and it follows what happened when He Shican, tally of names in hand, found himself short of what his guests owed him. It also follows the wealthier families who came to these same banquets treating a graduate's success as a chance to arrange a marriage. Stand at the water today, rebuilt centuries later as Tang Paradise, and this is the pool where both kinds of bargaining once played out.