A new Grand Tour

摘要

In the grounds of King's College, Cambridge, grows perhaps the most famous willow tree in China. It was immortalised by Xu Zhimo, a 20th-century poet with all the attributes required for lasting celebrity: talent, a rackety love life and a dramatic early death (plane crash at 34). With each passing year, growing crowds of Chinese tourists visit the tree and a nearby marble boulder inscribed with lines from Xu's poem, "On leaving Cambridge". Locals and tourists from elsewhere pass the tree without a sec- ond glance. But for educated Chinese, who learned Xu's poem in school, this tranquil spot, watched over by handsome white cows and an arched stone bridge, is a shrine to lost youth. Many are visibly moved, even as the cameras click and flash. Xu's verses help explain the great prestige Cambridge University enjoys in China, nudging it a notch or two ahead of Oxford. They also explain why many educated Chinese have heard of punting.