Pavilion to Enjoy the Pure Water Ceremony (Xishang Ting)

In 353, when the sage calligrapher Wang Xizhi had party with friends in the Orchid Pavilion, he wrote down the most famous prose Lan Ting Xu (Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion). As a tradition, on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, people would bathe in river to get rid of illness and remain healthy for one year. Literati often met on that day to compose poems, drink wine and enjoy beautiful landscape. To have more fun, wine cup was put on the surface of a stream which flew with the water. When it stopped in front of a person.

he had to write a poem or drink it up. This tradition was introduced to the court.

In the Qianlong garden inside the Forbidden City, there is a pavilion with curved waterways which enabled the emperor and the courtiers to enjoy in the same way. The Pavilion to Enjoy the Pure Water Ceremony was built in the Qianlong period. Being too artificial, it lacked the natural environment. Though surrounded with ancienttrees, open pavilions and rockery, it was situated low and narrow, unable to climb up and look afar.

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