The same moon
Eight looks at the same moon: shared by two people far apart, mistaken for frost, invited to drink, questioned, missed at Mid-Autumn, guessed to be circling the earth, joined by the moons of Jupiter, and at last stood on.
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Step 1: 望月懷遠 Gazing at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away
海上生明月，天涯共此時。Over the sea a bright moon rises; / at the ends of the sky we share this moment.
Over the sea a bright moon rises, and at the ends of the sky we share this moment: for Zhang Jiuling the moon is the one thing two people far apart can watch together, and he blows out the candle to let it fill the room; next, Li Bai’s moonlight lies on the floor like frost.
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Step 2: 靜夜思 Quiet Night Thoughts
舉頭望明月，低頭思故鄉。I raise my head and look at the bright moon, / lower my head and think of home.
Moonlight before the bed taken for frost, one look up and one look down, and home is suddenly very far: probably the best-known poem in Chinese, in the form most people learn; on another night, Li Bai invites the moon to drink.
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Step 3: 月下獨酌·其一 Drinking Alone Under the Moon (I)
舉杯邀明月，對影成三人。I raise my cup to invite the bright moon, / and with my shadow we make three.
With no one to drink with, Li Bai makes a party of three out of the moon, his shadow and himself, admits that neither guest can drink, and asks them to be friends anyway; the next poem puts a harder question to the moon.
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Step 4: 把酒問月 Wine in Hand, I Ask the Moon
今人不見古時月，今月曾經照古人。People today never saw the moon of old, / but this moon once shone on the people of old.
People today never saw the moon of old, but this moon once shone on the people of old: Li Bai’s question is the gentlest account on these shelves of why old writing still reaches us; three centuries later, Su Shi borrows it.
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Step 5: 水調歌頭（明月幾時有） To the Tune Shuidiao Getou: How Long Has the Bright Moon Been There
但願人長久，千里共嬋娟。I only wish that we may both live long / and share, a thousand li apart, the beauty of the moon.
On Mid-Autumn night, missing a brother he had not seen for years, Su Shi weighs the cold palace in the sky against the human world, chooses the world, and wishes only that both may live long and share the moon a thousand li apart; Wang Guowei finds a poet who guessed where the moon goes next.
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Step 6: 人間詞話（選） Poetic Remarks in the Human World (selection)
古今之成大事業、大學問者，必經過三種之境界。Everyone, past or present, who has achieved a great work or great learning must have passed through three stages.
In entry 47 Wang Guowei praises Xin Qiji for asking the setting moon whether there is another world where it is only now rising, a poet’s guess that the moon circles the earth, ‘in close agreement with the men of science’; Galileo, with a telescope, finds moons circling another world.
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Step 7: The Sidereal Messenger: the Moons of Jupiter
I therefore concluded, and decided unhesitatingly, that there are three stars in the heavens moving about Jupiter, as Venus and Mercury round the Sun; which at length was established as clear as daylight by numerous other subsequent observations.
On 7 January 1610 Galileo sees three small stars in a line beside Jupiter, and night by night, cloudy nights included, he works out that they are moons going round it, then asks every astronomer to check; at the last step, people stand on our own Moon.
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Step 8: Apollo 11 Lunar Plaque
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND
More than twelve hundred years after the first poem on this trail, people stood on the Moon and left four lines on a ladder for whoever comes next, ‘We came in peace for all mankind’, under two hemispheres of Earth drawn without borders.