Dongpo Academy

Dongpo Academy is located in Zhonghe Town，Danzhou City，Hainan Province，this place is called”Danzhou”county in ancient times.The total area is 2，500 square kilometers.And in 1996，Dongpo Academy is honored as”the key protection scenic spots”in China.Then，I would like to simply introduce the protagonist of this academy Su Shi to you.His courtesy name is Zizhan，and his pseudonym is Dongpo Jushi.He was born in Meishan near Mount Emei in Sichuan Province，and was a very outstanding literati，poet，artist and proser in the Song Dynasty.What’s more，Su Shi，together with his father Su Xun，his brother Su Zhe，is known as”Three Su”at that time.So it is without any doubt that he was born in a family of scholars.Su Dongpo was one of the”Eight Prose Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties”，his literary achivements is extremely excellent.His life of literary was smooth and prosperous while the life of official career was winding and tortuous.This multi-talented artist was often at odds with the Prime Minister Wang Anshi, and he was often banished because of other officials’ impeachment. Su Dongpo was once exiled to Qiongzhou, now Hainan Province. With the help of the local people,a residencewas built for him to live in, and Su Dongpo named it as “Zaijiu Hall”. In the Qing Dynasty, after the reconstruction of Zaijiu Hall, its name had been changed into “Dongpo Academy”.

The tasteful gate come into our sight once we stand in front of the academy, there are four Chinese Characters “Dongpo Shuyuan”on the door. Walking into it, you can see a very beautiful pond with the waves shining and swing,a bridge cross this pond and keeping walking you’ ll arrive at ZaijiuPavilion, which is covered with green tile and double eaves. The upper eaves have four angles while the underneath eaves have eight angles, and the crossing angles make the pavilion just like a flying birds and a commemorative plague is hanging in the pavilion with “Yu Niao Qin Ren”on it. It means during the exiled days in Hainan, Su Dongpo regarded the fishes and birds as his relatives and enjoyed himself in the nature. There are eight pictures in theZaijiu Pavilion, which can let you know the life of Su Dongpo in his exiled days. Also you can see two limpid pools where fishes are playing with each other and lotus blossom beautifully.

Go straight, then we are gonna to visit a house in which stones are displayed. Su had once been appointed as Bingbu Shangshu by the emperor in person, so this place is called”Qinshuai Tang”. You can see a special kind of flowers, named puppy flower because the pistil of them look like five cute puppies sitting together. There is an interesting anecdote behind this kind of flowers. It is said that Wang Anshi once wrote “The moon is shouting in the sky; five puppies are sleeping in the pistil”. Su Dongpo heard about it and laughed. He changed it into “The moon is shining in the sky, five puppies are sleeping around the pistil”. Wang Anshi didn’ t say anything but smiled. Su Dongpo realized after he was exiled to Hainan that Moon was the name for a kind of birds, which liked singing on the branch, and Puppy was the name for a kind of flowers, the pistils of which looked like five cute puppies. Wang was right while he was totally wrong. Friends, if you are interested in this kind of flowers, do not miss it!

Keep walking until you find the main building of Dongpo Academy-Zaijiu Hall，where Su Dongpo met his friends and taught his students.Some precious papers and literature history records are being displayed in here.You can also see the statues of him and Su Guo，his son，and Li Zhiyun，his good friend.There are 13 inscriptions of several literati surrounding Zaijiu Hall，of which the most famous one is a painting from Tang Bohu who is a very outstanding painter in the Ming Dynasty.In his painting，Su Dongpo wears a straw hat and straw sandals，his trouser legs rolling up and running in a rush on the muddy trail in the countryside on a rainy day，very visual and vivid.During the exiled days，Su had a profound influence on the local people，and Danzhou City had won thereputation for”the ocean of poems”for a long time.In Zhonghe Town，don’t feel surprised if you have the chance to hear a senior citizen recite poems，which is what we called”Dongpo influencial”.

The deep friendship between Su Dongpo and the local people win the respect of Hainan people from generation to generation，so did the spirit of spreading the advanced knowledge of the mainland.Some people also said “Su’s unluckiness contributed to Hainan’s luckiness”.We can see it clearly that during the days of his exile，Su Dongpo had brought the priceless spirit fortune and literature nurture，which is the starting point of building Dongpo Academy，to commemorate.

qingquang

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