Finding a Plot of Magic Mushrooms: Tang Poetry and Daoist Caves in Contemporary China

This paper develops a method for reading classical Chinese poetry when it appears as quotation on social media and becomes attached to contemporary places. It begins with a 2016 Weibo “#早自习” (“morning self-study”) post that simply quotes Wang Bo’s Tang poem Xun daoguan (“Seeking a Daoist Temple”). Rather than treating this as a purely literary gesture, the paper argues that quoted poems reflect and participate in devotional practices present across contemporary China. Expanding outward to posts about Daoist caves and temples, it shows how social media posts often emerge during travel experiences, religious visits, or heightened emotional states such as nostalgia, fatigue, longing, or serenity. In these contexts, quoted poetry functions as an emotional intensifier, a legitimizing voice, and a form of cultural capital. The paper demonstrates how feeling gathers around caves—imagined as liminal, sheltered zones of sacred depth—illuminating contemporary expressions of popular Daoism