This entry explains idiom “Cang hai sang tian” from Ge Hong’s Biographies of Immortals. Drawing on Maggu’s tale, it depicts immense long‑term transformations, stressing impermanence of circumstances and worldly fortunes.
Walk down any street in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, or Macau, and you’ll see them: small shopfronts with gleaming brass or copper kettles, their shelves lined with mysterious dried herbs. These are liangcha (凉茶) shops – herbal tea shops – and they are as much a part of Guangdong’s cultural landscape as dim sum or…