Well, we just got back from Hero, which we quite enjoyed, but I had a question about the library in the calligraphy school. It seemed to be made of Jenga-ish stacks of rolled, er, placemat things - I assume a scroll is rolled up in a bamboo-slat map, and then stacked in rows of three at right angles, and can be pulled out just like a Jenga piece? I noticed hanging tags on some of the scrolls, I assume as some form of call number or identification?
Is this a normal Chinese library of any historical period, and when? The subtitle mentioned “bookshelves”, which was obviously not the actual word - is there a more literal translation for what to call these things? How many scrolls make up a document? From the movie it seemed it would be hard to take out the scrolls parallel to the viewer - would an actual library have had stacks farther apart? Could you just take out one or would you have to remove more?
I do hope somebody knows more about this - I’m pretty aware of the historical evolution of Western books and scrolls and the furniture they’re put on, but know virtually nothing of how it is and was done in the East.