Handan

Capital of the state of Zhao in the Warring States period, a center of debate where logicians of the School of Names such as Gongsun Long sharpened their paradoxes.

Handan was the Zhao capital and one of the busiest cities of the Warring States, a place where fashions were set and copied. The proverb about the young man who went to Handan to learn its elegant walk, failed, forgot his own gait, and had to crawl home comes from Zhuangzi. Gongsun Long attached himself to the Zhao court, where paradoxes about names and horses served as entertainment and, on at least one occasion, as diplomacy.