Beauty Map

Author: Han Shi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Unique travel advice, Profound cultural heritage, Humorous tour guide commentary, Funny comic illustrations. With hundreds of thousands of words and hundreds of images, all packaged in a beautifully designed book. How many beautiful women have there been throughout history? The long river of history has washed away countless figures of charm. Standing by the river, scooping up a handful of its ancient waters, the stunning beauties of past dynasties flash before your eyes—some tragic and beautiful, some magnificent and sorrowful, some enchanting and alluring. In an instant, they become fleeting clouds, yet beauty remains.
The peerless beauties of ancient times, like pearls nurtured by millennia of history, shine through the ages, transcending time and echoing in the corridors of the universe. Beauty always delights the eye. The Map of Beauties encompasses the courtesans, empresses, and exquisite women of ancient times, from the remote prehistoric era to the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. There are the legendary figures like Nuwa and Chang'e; the "Four Great Beauties of China"—Xi Shi, Diaochan, Wang Zhaojun, and Yang Guifei; as well as the renowned beauties like Lü Zhu, Xue Tao, Chen Yuanyuan, and Qiu Jin. Each beauty represents a piece of history, and every one has a story untold by many, a tale of passionate love and tragic fate.
Guided by these beauties, we can feel Bao Si's "hundredfold charm" under the billowing smoke of the ancient Great Wall; immerse ourselves in the exotic allure of the homeland of the fragrant concubine; wander through the Huaqing Pool where the imperial concubine bathed; and gallop across the battlefield where Hua Mulan fought. In doing so, we find ourselves on a "Map of Beauties."
Throughout history, beautiful women have often been linked to the labels of "calamity-bringers" and "fate-tainted." Dynasties have unilaterally blamed them for the downfall of nations, as in the case of Yang Guifei, who was forced to commit suicide at Mawei Pass for the sake of a single ride carrying fresh lychees ("A single horse galloped through the dust, the imperial concubine smiled, yet no one knew it was for lychees"). Or Wu Sangui, who "flew into a rage for the sake of beauty" (), a beauty so heartbreakingly captivating. They were merely pawns in the struggles for power, playthings of emperors and generals, or convenient scapegoats. From this perspective, the "fate-tainted" reputation of beautiful women was inevitable. Born as beauties, they were destined for tragic lives: Yu Mei, the peerless beauty, took her own life alongside Xiang Yu, the great hero defeated at Gaixia, a tale both sorrowful and lamentable. Diaochan, who plotted to eliminate the villain Dong Zhuo, also met her end, a story both heroic and heartbreaking.
Beauty itself is not wrong; what is wrong is using it as a veil to hide inner cruelty, as in the cases of Empresses Lü and Daji, the so-called "snake venom women" or "hearts of poison." Their beauty was superficial, unable to withstand the test of time.
Throughout history, beauty has often altered the course of events. In the collision of reality and the past, The Map of Beauties will fill your life with beauty.