Peach Blossom Shangri-la: Tao Hua Yuan Ji

Produced by Rick Davis and David Steelman.
Peach Blossom Shangri-la (Tao Hua Yuan Ji)
Tao Yuan Ming
Translated and proofed by Rick Davis and David Steelman
Note from the translators: This file contains this well-known Chinese story in both English translation and the Chinese original. If your computer is not set up to read BIG5 encoding, the Chinese will appear as garbage characters.
Updateŕs note: This file has been recoded to UTF8.
Peach Blossom Shangri-la (Tao Hua Yuan Ji)
The peach trees stopped at the stream's source, where the fisherman came to a mountain with a small opening through which it seemed he could see light. Leaving his boat, he entered the opening. At first it was so narrow that he could barely pass, but after advancing a short distance it suddenly opened up to reveal a broad, flat area with imposing houses, good fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo, and the like. The fisherman saw paths extending among the fields in all directions, and could hear the sounds of chickens and dogs. Men and women working in the fields all wore clothing that looked like that of foreign lands. The elderly and children all seemed to be happy and enjoying themselves.
The fisherman exited through the opening, found his boat, and retraced his route while leaving markers to find this place again. Upon his arrival at the prefecture town he went to the prefect and told him what had happened. The prefect immediately sent a person to follow the fisherman and look for the trail markers, but they got lost and never found the way.
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Translator's Notes
This translation is based on the SiKuQuanShu text with editorial emendations and punctuation by the translators. It was done by Rick Davis (Japan) with help from David Steelman (Taiwan).