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Getting
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Legends of Yibin
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of Interest
DaGuan Tower
Floating Wine Cup Brook
Bamboo Sea
Stone & Cave Forest
XiJia Fazenda
Pagodas
Local Specially Product
WuLiang Liquor
Local Tea
Local Taste Cates
Bamboo Handcrafts
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A
small marvel, the Park of the "Floating Wine Cup Brook", lies
in the northernmost part of the city. The brook that lends its name to
the park winds its way through stony hills and a steep canyon making the
water crystal clear. The brook is only in part of a nature work, it was
further refined by the great poet Huang TingJian and his friends 900 years
ago. What a source of inspiration this place must have been. Here, to
the then wilderness, he came to endure four years of banishment, and here
he built his house and garden. Soon his poet friends gathered at his house
to eat and drink.
This combination of circumstances gave rise to a special game, unparalleled
in the history of literature. He and his friends would spread out along
the banks of the serpentine stream. Meanwhile a wine cup was set adrift
on the current as it floated downstream it would pass the waiting poets
one by one. But the embankment was not smooth, and sooner or later the
little cup would get snagged by rocks or caught by back currents along
the edge. Whoever stood at that point would win the honour of having to
create a poem right there on the spot. The poem would be written directly
on the wall of the canyon - and there they almost remain, since the game
was played repeatedly.
Today Huang TingJian's and his friends are famed among the foremost of
the Song dynasty poets. At the floating wine cup brook you will get in
touch with the artistry of ancient Song dynasty China, at time of cultural
flowering and learning.
