"The moon in China has a special meaning. And when it's full, that represents the fullness and reunification of the family. So that poem struck the deep core of my heart whenever I miss my family."

Says Yuan Haiwang, author of "This Is China: The First 5,000 Years," quoted in "Li Bai and Du Fu: China's drunken superstar poets" (BBC). He was talking about a poem by Li Bai (701-762 AD).

Moonlight in front of my bed 

I took it for frost on the ground 

I lift my head, gaze at the mountain moon 

Lower it, and think of home.

I'm reading that this morning because a reader, K, saw my post about "tangping" and emailed:

Tang was the greatest age of Chinese poetry and the greatest Tang poetry included attacks on the court, and on corruption and in praise of "drunkenness" or withdrawal from the struggle to get ahead at the court. Perhaps for the Chinese "tang-ling" [sic] has some sort of resonance suggesting these great Tang poets. Asking, was the Tang era the greatest Chinese era or is Xi's China the greatest. Subtle, maybe, but the Chinese have been civilized for a long time. I wonder. Perhaps we should love bomb Beijing with millions of copies of On Walden Pond and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to counter the Confucian Institutes here.

I don't know what classic literature you're reading right now. Me, I've been reading G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy." That line about the moon — "The moon in China has a special meaning" — caught my eye, because I'd just read this, from Chesterton:

"Young Chinese are rebelling against society through... the tangping, or 'lying flat,' way of life... not getting married, not having children, not buying a house or a car..."

"... and refusing to work extra hours or to hold a job at all. 'I stay at home and sleep and watch television series. Sometimes I go out for walks, read books and just think a lot,' said Daisy Zhang, 28... Tangping has emerged over the last few months as the rallying call of Chinese millennials who have had enough of the rat race. Some compare them to the 1950s Beat Generation in the United States. Others call their behavior a form of nonviolent resistance or 'ideological emancipation' from consumerism. Supporters portray it as a rejection of struggle and endless striving.... Internet users identified themselves as 'lying flatists,' posting photos of cats and seals lying supine. ... When Chinese officials announced loosened family-size limits to allow all couples to have up to three children, one commentator quipped, 'We are all thinking about how best to lie down while they are pushing us to reproduce.'"

From "Young Chinese take a stand against pressures of modern life — by lying down" (WaPo). 

Here's a definition for "tangping" that somebody — LeoF — wrote up at Urban Dictionary: