Drinking Along the Winding Canal

The allegory goes that ancient Chinese scholars and artists used to make poems and drink in a riverside gathering. They contained wine in chalices and put them in a canal. When a chalice stopped in front of a scholar/artist, that scholar/artist would drink that chalice of wine and make a verse. The Lanting gathering (literally orchid pavilion gathering) and the poems made by calligrapher Xizhi WANG and friends are probably the most famous riverside gathering and works ever recorded in ancient China. The Preface to Collected Works at Orchid Pavilion (Lantingji Xu) written by Xizhi Wang is even amongst the greatest calligraphic works in Chinese history.