Chinese tourist-site performer portraying poet Li Bai offers advice to burned-out visitors

A young Chinese man is reviving China’s most famous poet Li Bai at a tourist site, and has become millions of visitors’ emotional outlet for burnout.Wang Haonan, 24, amasses more than a million followers online after he went viral playing the role of Li Bai at Hetou Old Street, a Tang dynasty-themed tourist district in Tangshan in northern China’s Hebei province.The Tang dynasty (618–907) is recognised as the golden age of Chinese poetry, and Li Bai (c. 701–762) is widely honoured as the most famous poet of the period and throughout Chinese history.Also known as “Poet Immortal”, Li is known for his carefree, untamed character, and his love for drinking. He has 1,000 extant poems, many of which were said to be created while drunk, including the famous Bring in the Wine.Wang Haonan, left, amassed a million online followers after going viral as Li Bai at Tangshan’s Tang dynasty-themed Hetou Old Street in Hebei. Photo: WeixinWang became a non-player character at the tourist site last year as a fresh music major graduate from college. He started playing an ordinary blacksmith, and was later given the role of Li Bai.His job requires him to recite poems one after another with the visitors. If the visitor successfully recites the lines, he would give them a “bank note” – money to spend at the site.Wang said he thought playing Li Bai had been easy because he, just like all others of his generation, recited Li’s poems at school, but he was given a head-on blow on his first day.A visitor approached him reciting a line from Li Bai’s absolute masterpiece, An Ode to Swordsmen, but Wang did not know the verse.“Isn’t this your poem?” the visitor challenged him.Wang said he felt ashamed, and recited 20 poems by Li Bai that night.Wang uses his spare time at work to recite and memorise more of Li Bai’s poems. Photo: WeixinHe then decided to recite all of Li’s poems. Working from 2pm to 9pm, Wang recited Li’s poems in his spare time. He also bought a second-hand smartwatch so he could review the poems more conveniently.Further ReadingAs a self-taught actor, Wang also studied Li’s life, aiming to “bring Li Bai back to life”. Having worked as Li Bai for less than a year, his costume had been adapted five times already, to respect historical facts.His hard work paid off. Many praised that Wang played Li Bai so vividly that “Li Bai has possessed this young man”.Many visited the site just for him. They even consulted him about their troubles, such as work being too stressful, and being pushed by parents to get married.Wang sometimes replied to them with Li Bai’s poems, and sometimes with the poems he wrote himself.Many visitors praised Wang’s vivid portrayal of Li Bai, saying, “Li Bai has possessed this young man,” and flocked to visit the scenic spot just to see him. Photo: WeixinHe acknowledged that his talent at creating poems is “far less than Li Bai’s”, but he was not discouraged: “No one is born knowing how to write poems. We all need to learn step by step.”Having an inferiority complex all his life, Wang said he was also encouraged by Li’s life attitude after studying his poems.When young Li Bai paid a superior official a visit and got the cold shoulder, he wrote: “The roc will rise up with the wind one day, soaring ninety thousand miles up straight.”In Bring in the Wine, which Li Bai penned during his dismissed days, he wrote: “Heaven has made us talents; we are not made in vain. A thousand gold coins spent; more will turn up again.”Wang said Li Bai had changed his life attitude.He also said he was proud of bringing Li Bai back to life in his hometown Tangshan on many occasions.Many Chinese tourist sites, especially those with historical or literature themes, hire actors to play non-player characters, interacting with visitors in costumes.Having harboured an inferiority complex all his life, Wang said he was also encouraged by Li’s life attitude after studying his poems, and that Li had changed his outlook. Photo: WeixinSome non-player characters went viral previously, such as the roly-poly dancer at the Datang Everbright City in Xian, Shaanxi province, and Little Yellow Fish at Gexian Village in Jiangxi province, who sparked controversy for his flirtatious interactions with female visitors.Wang said he wanted to promote traditional Chinese culture in Li Bai’s shoes.He said many children also came to him reciting Li’s poems. Some even asked him to “teach them”. Some parents also thanked him for “kindling the passion for Chinese poetry” in their children.“I don’t have to push my child to study Chinese literature anymore,” one parent told him.