| Shaobing Song | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 燒餅歌 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 烧饼歌 | ||||||||||
| Literal meaning | shaobing song | ||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
The “Shaobing Song” or the “Pancake Poem” is a poem purported to be written by Liu Ji, also known by his courtesy name as Liu Bowen, during the Ming dynasty. He supposedly presented the poem to the Hongwu Emperor.[1]
The poem is named after the Chinese pastry shaobing. It is written in cryptic form and is difficult to understand. Some believe that certain lines contain references to the future of China at the time including:
Most of the predictions since 1911 have been vague and inaccurate. This led some experts to believe the work is a hoax of recent production, designed to reassure people that all would be well when there was much unrest as a consequence of the Japanese invasion and the rise of communism.[1]