Life
Zhang Dai was born in Ming Dynasty Wanli 25th year (1597 AD) in Shanyin (山陰), now Shaoxing of Zhejiang province, China.
Zhang Dai never passed the Imperial examinations which led to the Ming civil service, instead he becoming a private scholar and aesthete. His family's wealth allowed him to develop his aesthetic tastes in such pursuits as Moon watching festivals, Chinese lantern design, the sponsorship of dramatic troupes, appreciation of tea, and garden and landscape aesthetics. His writing tries to convey the sensuality and subtlety of these pursuits.
His inwardly focused mind did not see the coming collapse of the Ming in 1644-1645. When anarchy and war broke over his beloved landscape in the Yangtze delta he was forced to flee to the mountains where he hid as a Buddhist monk. When he returned in 1649 all his property was gone and he lived as a tenant in the ruins of one of his beloved gardens. It was here he completed his history of the Ming Dynasty, in part to explain its collapse.
He died in Qing Dynasty Kangxi 28th year (1689 AD) at age 93.
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