This place stands as the most flourishing corner of Hangzhou. It is said that in the height of the Tang, scholars spoke of the lands by the Yellow and Luo Rivers, where a carp that leapt through the Dragon Gate would ascend into a dragon. Amid the chaos of the Five Dynasties, the common folk were scattered and displaced, and only in the south did households of bell-ringing splendor endure, preserving the teachings of poetry, ritual, and righteousness. Nowadays, after rain falls upon West Lake, one often sees bright-scaled fish leaping in a scene, which the people take as an auspicious omen—and so, in the Spring Breeze Lane, great fish lanterns are set out, called Ascending Leap. One may well believe that an age of flourishing learning and culture is not far off.
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