On the Character: 里

A Chinese character that can be both close and far 里：這么近，那么遠(yuǎn)

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The period before the founding of the first imperial dynasty in 221 BCE is considered a “golden age” of love in ancient China： Nearly one third of the 300 or so poems and ballads from the 11th to 6th century BCE collected in the Classic of Poetry （《詩(shī)經(jīng)》） talk explicitly about romance and marriage.

As Song dynasty （960 – 1279） scholar Zhu Xi （朱熹） concluded in his analysis， “[Pieces in] the ‘Airs of the States’ [one of the three sections] of the Classic of Poetry are mostly ballads， where men and women chant their feelings to each other. （凡詩(shī)之所聞風(fēng)者，多出于里巷歌謠之作。（剩余3451字）