It is possible to reconstruct the emergence of a cliché such as that of the peng 蓬 (tumbleweed) which has been used since the Han to portrait literati sent on duty far away from home. Du Fu (712-770) uses this cliché and thus inscribes himself within a tradition and a community. However, he also portraits himself as a seagull. The genealogy of this seagull comparaison can be rooted back to different poems by Du Fu himself and by previous writers. Although it has brought modern readers to focus on it and suggest that it is a rhetorical tool to differentiate oneself, commentaries from the Tang down to the Qing dynasty decipher this new image as continuation of the tumbleweed tradition.