The Chinese literary epic, Three Kingdoms, which will be published in a fifteenth anniversary edition by UC Press this spring, has spurred a growing tourism industry in China, according to the New York Times:
There are countless hamlets, towns and cities across China that boast of links to the four or five towering classics of Chinese literature and the historical events on which those works are based. Virtually all Chinese learn these tales, which mix history and myth, and so residents of otherwise obscure locales leap at the chance to latch on to the legends, sometimes for profit.
Luo Guanzhong’s Three Kingdoms, which is as important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, tells the story of the fateful last reign of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), when the Chinese empire was divided into three warring kingdoms.
One Chinese town, Longmen, famous for its association with the king Sun Quan, “charges a $13 entrance fee to outsiders, who usually make the 30-mile drive from the provincial capital of Hangzhou,” according to the article. Read more about Three Kingdoms’ connection to modern day China at the New York Times.
