Ancient Literary Building

Ancient Literary Building. Hexia Ancient Town only covers an area of 2 square kilometers. However, this piece of tiny land is home to Shen Kun, Wang Tingzhen and Xia Yuehu, who came out first, second and third respectively in the highest imperial examinations. At first, the Literary Building and the Martial Building were built opposite to each other in honor of Shen Kun and Ye Yunwu who came out first in the highest imperial martial examination. In the Jiaqing period of the Qing dynasty, the Chen family bought the Literary Building and transformed it into a restaurant to only offer steamed dumplings filled with golden crab-spawn. Zhou Enlai vividly described his experience of going to Hexia to taste steamed dumplings filled with golden crab-spawn in Literary Building and also kindly asked about the operation of the restaurant when he received the head of Huai'an County in April 1960. 

There was an unwritten rule in Hexia. Before having meals, people had to compose couplets. Those who couldn't compose couplets had to entertain the others who could. The emperor Qianlong with his official Ji Xiaolan once travelled to Hexia in disguise. He was very interested in the unwritten rule and had a bet with local girls on composing couplets without thinking. 

A local girl composed the first line without thinking. The first line of the couplet seems simple but contains a lot of meanings. It contains the colloquial expression for unmarried girls in Hexia, two pairs of antonyms which are small and big and top and bottom, the name of the town Hexia, four directions which are east, south, west and north, and the two words east and west which could be used to indicate one particular thing in Chinese. We can see that the place for the second line of the couplet is still empty. Therefore, the emperor Qianlong entertained the local girls at the Literary Building.