Bai Juyi (AD 772-846) was a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty (AD618-907), with the style name Letian. His ancestral home is the modern-day city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province and he once lived in what is the modern-day Weinan, then stayed on Xiangshan Mountain, near the city of Luoyang, Henan province and referred to himself as the "Hermit of Xiangshan". His poems are succinct and easy to understand, with many of them dealing with ordinary people's lives, which were hard at that time, and the corruption and brutality of the ruling class. Two of his most famous works are the long narrative "Song of Everlasting Regret" and "Song of the Pipa Player".
