Anecdote: The Pavilion of Borrowed Bamboo

The Pavilion of Borrowed Bamboo, Xu Ming's residence was very small, so over near his neighbor's bamboo garden he built a little framework pavilion, which received the cool shade through its window, and he stayed there during  summer months to escape the heat. He therefore wrote a sign for it, which read: Borrowed Bamboo.

Translation by Stephen D. Allee

Wu Xiqi used a typical scholarly style of running script to write the text of this short anecdote about Xu Ming, a poor, obscure scholar, who cleverly found a way to use his neighbor's bamboo for his own enjoyment and relief. Xu Ming remains unidentified and may have been a contemporary of the calligrapher; however, several other poor scholars during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties also "borrowed" bamboo from their neighbors and named their constructions "The Pavilion of Borrowed Bamboo."

Wu Xiqi was a prominent poet and prose stylist during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. After receiving his advanced degree (jinshi) in 1775, he served in the imperial Hanlin Academy, briefly became a tutor to younger members of the imperial family, and eventually rose to the position of Chancellor of the National University in 1801.