A closer look
Eighth-century Chang'an makes modern New York look aggressively boring. As the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, the Tang dynasty capital was a booming metropolis of a million people, filled with wildly cosmopolitan taverns. Famous poets like Li Bai would routinely get plastered on imported Persian grape wine while watching blonde-haired Sogdian illusionists and Central Asian dancers perform. These local pubs weren't just drinking holes; they were massive international hubs where Arab merchants, Japanese scholars, and Chinese aristocrats violently debated poetry and executed shady trade deals over fermented grain bowls.
