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In a fourth-century tale, two farmers get lost in a pleasure grotto and unwittingly sever their fragile ties with the mortal world. Surprisingly, this simple cautionary fantasy spawned a complex literary tradition. The narrative instability of the tale was part of its snowballing appeal. Early in the tale’s journey through literary history, the girls met by the farmers morphed into female entertainers, Daoist priestesses, and spiritual transcendents. This malleability offered a wealth of artistic possibilities. The feature of “time dilation” and its associated dangers was also to become a flexible literary instrument and a defining feature of grotto fantasy literature.
Beijing’s Drinking Water and Its Carriers, 1644–1937
Author:
Water Lords presents the untold story of drinking water and its carriers in Beijing from the imperial Qing to the Republican period. It adds an ecological perspective to existing studies by foregrounding water as a distinctive force that shaped urban life in the realms of technology, society, and politics.

With this book, Lei Zhang makes a new and meaningful contribution to the field of Chinese environmental history by attending to water as a daily necessity and examining the previously neglected arrangements that provided urban denizens with predictable access to this critical resource.
Volume Editors: and
Translator:
This translated volume is based on the publication Green Book of Population and Labor (No. 20), originally published in Chinese by the Social Science Academic Press (SASS). The focus of this volume is high-quality employment in China. The topics covered include China’s labor market during the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan; labor supply and demand; the economic impact of consumption among migrant workers; labor supply elasticity and productivity; geographical and structural shifts in job opportunities; and the educational profiles and income distribution among migrants. The final chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges associated with the rapid development of AI and robotics.