Xie Lingyun was consequently brought up by a Buddhist monk, Du Ming, in what was then Qiantang but now Hangzhou,[1] a cosmopolitan metropolis at the southern end of the Grand Canal, a market nexus for maritime trade and transport to and from the north, and an area widely famed for its scenery with surrounding hills and the spectacular West Lake.

Located in Shining (始寧) (modern Shangyu township, Shaoxing prefecture, Zhejiang province—but administered and named differently then), the estate had been carefully chosen by his grandfather, the successful general, both for esthetics of beauty and its seclusion, who then planned and laid it out according to his wishes.

[3] The family home on the northern hill had been terraced and developed with well-planned and situated orchards, gardens, walking paths, and ornate pavilions, all done with a mind to preserve and increase the viewer's pleasure: the southern hill during the youth of Xie Lingyun was left as somewhat of a wild preserve; but, between the two there was a whole range of fields and crops as well as wild plant and animal life.

[4] The Xie family received official residence in a fancy mansion, where their entertainments were among the foremost for the luxury and display fashionable at that time: that the young duke (having inherited the title when his father died) was well off financially (having also inherited the three thousand household fiefdom which went with the ducal title) and was also skilled in the expected literary abilities; which, altogether, went towards placing him in the highlight of the capital's social scene, and (with the family connections) also thus appearing to be at the very beginning of a very successful official career.

At this point, as an official in the Liu Song government, Xie Lingyun received a demotion, to marquis, with only 500 households in fee.

Here he went on long exploratory expeditions, accompanied by dozens of servants, who often had to hack a way through the more densely vegetated areas: Xie Lingyun is also famed for having invented and used a type of wooden boots with spikes which he could remove or adjust depending on whether he was on level ground or on an up or down slope.