In the center of Tongcheng, in Anhui province, a lane less than two meters wide runs beside the old house of Zhang Ying, a grand secretary under the Kangxi Emperor. The story behind it is widely told. Zhang’s family quarreled with their neighbors, the Wu family, over a wall. They wrote to him in the capital. He answered with a poem:
“A letter from a thousand miles away, only about a wall. Why not let them have three feet? The Great Wall still stands today, but the First Emperor of Qin is gone.” His family moved back three feet. The Wu family was moved and also moved back three feet. The gap became the Six-Foot Lane (六尺巷).
Versions of the story differ in details, including the wording of the poem’s first line.