Li Bai， the self-taught medieval genius， remains China’s abiding titan of classical poetry.

李白，这位自学成才的中世纪天才，至今仍是中国古典诗歌界不朽的巨匠。

Born in 701， Li Bai famously began composing verse at age 10， trained as a master swordsman in his teens， and spent much of his Byronic life wandering the Chinese countryside seeking， with indifferent success， employment in various royal courts. Inspired drunkenness became so vital to his literary method that he was inducted into a sodden group of Tang Dynasty scholars called the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup1. About a thousand of Li Bai’s poems survive still. Hundreds of millions of Chinese schoolchildren memorize Li Bai’s stanzas unto this day. According to legend， the great bard perished， drowned at age 62， while tipsily trying to touch the moon’s reflection in the Yangtze River.

李白生于公元701年，据说他10岁开始作诗，少年时练成一代剑客。他将自己拜伦式生活的大半时间用于游历中国乡间，辗转于不同的朝廷谋求官位，却始终未能得志。醉酒状态成为他创作的重要灵感来源，以至于他位列“醉八仙”（嗜酒如命的八位唐朝文人）。李白的诗作约有1000首流传至今。现在，数亿中国学童仍要背诵李白的诗篇。据传，这位伟大的诗人在62岁那年，于醉意朦胧之中试图手捞长江中的月影，最终溺水而亡。

Li Hongbin， a stocky and sad-faced former accountant， knows all these Li Bai factoids. Not because he is merely another super-fan of China’s poetic idol. But because—to Li Hongbin—it’s more or less autobiography. Li Hongbin believes he is likely the living reincarnation of Li Bai.

李洪斌身材矮壮、面容悲戚，曾是一名会计。他通晓所有关于李白的轶事传说。这并非因为他也是诗仙李白的一介“铁粉”，而是因为对他来说，李白的故事大致就是他的自传。李洪斌相信自己很可能就是李白的“转世”。

“I’m confident of this，” said Li Hongbin， hunched in a derelict souvenir kiosk that he’s restored as a hermit’s hut at the Li Bai Cultural Center， in Qing-lian， the great poet’s childhood town in China’s western Sichuan province. “After 1，300 years， I’m the only poet living in Li Bai’s hometown who is still composing poetry. I even sign my work Li Bai.”

“对此我很确信。”李洪斌说。他挤在一座被他翻修成隐居之所的废弃纪念品亭子里。这座亭子坐落在中国西部四川省青莲镇的李白故居景区，伟大诗人李白正是在青莲镇度过了童年。“经过1300年，李白的故乡只有我这个诗人仍在作诗。我甚至在自己的作品上署名‘李百’。”

He’d exchanged home， family， friends， and job to pursue his muse in a seven-foot-by-seven-foot2 booth next to a concrete parking lot in a town of strangers. He eked out3 his groceries by selling “maybe not so perfect” samples of calligraphy to tourist guesthouses. The guesthouse owners indulged him， with a grin， as “our own Li Bai.”

李洪斌放弃了房子、家庭、朋友和工作，追随李白来到陌生的小镇，搬进混凝土停车场旁不到五平方米的小亭子里。