Sila

Sila (Sīla, 新羅) is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Continent. It is often divided into three cultural areas: Kitai (Xatāy, 契丹) to the north,[1] Dai Nam (Dāynām, 大南, ‘the Great South’) to the south,[2] and Fusang (Fūsan, 扶桑), an archipelago off its eastern shore.[3]

The great metropolis of Kitai is Cambaluc (Xān-bāliġ, 大都), a city worthy of the emperors who have called it home.

  1. Kitai and Cambaluc are stand-ins for North China and Beijing in their frigid, austere, imperial glory: Coleridge’s Xanadu and Kublai Khan’s capital in Invisible Cities → Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Beijing. Further west, frontier ballads abound. (Kitai is, of course, a variant of the toponym Cathay.)↩︎

  2. Dai Nam, then, is a tribute to earthy, humid South China, land of fish and rice, as well as Vietnam on the other side of the border. I suppose these impressions I get from too much Fuchsia Dunlop and Chinese Cooking Demystified.↩︎

  3. Fusang takes after Japan, and perhaps Korea a bit. (The name comes from a legendary island off the coast of China.)↩︎