Tengwang Pavilion

One Of The Three Great Towers Of Jiangnan, On The Gan River In Nanchang; National 5A Tourist Attraction · Nanchang, Jiangxi

A great tiered pavilion on the bank of the Gan River in Nanchang, first raised in 653 by a Tang prince and rebuilt, by most counts, twenty-nine times since - burned, flooded, dismantled and raised again, most recently in 1989 in a reinforced concrete version that follows a Song-dynasty painting. Its fame rests on a piece of writing: at a banquet here in 675 the young poet Wang Bo is said to have improvised the Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion, an essay of dazzling parallel prose whose line about the setting sun and a lone wild duck flying together above autumn waters every Chinese schoolchild learns. The pavilion has nine levels from the outside and six inside, hung with murals, calligraphy and models of its earlier incarnations, and the top floor looks over the river to the towers of the modern city. Performances of Tang music and dance are staged in the halls through the day. In a nice touch, visitors who can recite Wang Bo's preface from memory are let in free.

Tengwang Pavilion, Donghu District, Nanchang, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China

Daily, with last entry about 17:45 from April to October and the gates closing around 18:30; shorter hours in winter (check).

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