24 hubeispecial TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2010 CHINA DAILY

PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY ’s newly opened Memorial Museum of Su Dongpo attracts a large number of visitors from home and abroad.

museum exhibition hall Liu Shanqiao (front center), secretary of the Huanggang Party Committee, visits the Huanggang Mayor Liu Xuerong (second from left) introduces an exhibit city’s newly opened Memorial Museum of Su Dongpo. to visitors. Huanggang celebrates life and works of Su Dongpo

the Su Dongpo Museum. manipulated his writing brush. The ancient artist and poet is Alongside the essential displays and e museum also has several exhib- artifacts are several high-tech interac- its of robotic wax figures portraying honored in a new museum tive exhibitions that give the museum's scenes from the polymath's life. With presentation of this ancient character a a hoe in hand, one Su android tells his By ZHUAN TI Cliffs that he authored his best-known futuristic twist. life story. piece of prose, Chibifu (Red Cliffs Visitors can row a pair of oars affixed Now, Huanggang hopes to capitalize Huanggang, in province, Rhapsody). to a stand set up in front of a projector on Su’s artistic success. recently opened the Memorial e work commemorates the fierce that shows the digitally rendered helm “We aim to deliver general prosperity Museum of Su Dongpo (1036-1101), battle at Red Cliffs (AD 208-209) in of a boat navigating the waters near a to our 7.3 million residents by promot- famed (960-1279) poet, which the direly outnumbered forces cliff. e simulation allows visitors to ing tourism,” said Mayor Liu Xuerong. artist, calligrapher, pharmacologist and of the southern warlords Liu Bei and pretend they are Su paddling along the Huanggang is an agricultural city, statesman. Sun Quan cunningly vanquished the river to his home near Chibi. home to part of the Dabie mountain Born in Meishan near Mount Emei massive military might of northern Near the nautical simulation is a range and the Red Cliff. e cliff owes in Sichuan province, Su’s extant writ- general Cao Cao. e victory sustained computerized touch-screen display its enduring fame to two pieces of prose ings are of great value to contempo- the national schisms that trisected the that allows guests to try their hands at by Su, who reflected on its role in the rary understandings of collapsing Eastern Han Dynasty (AD replicating Su's calligraphy. ancient battle. Chinese travel literature and the iron 25-220) into the ree Kingdoms (AD Visitors copy samples that flash on Today, several Huanggang land- industry. 220-280). the screen by tracing the characters marks are named after the poet and Formerly known as , the multi- Su's ode to the victory is essential with their fingertips. Upon complet- his works. Among them are the Hall talented artist was oen at odds with reading for the country's primary ing a line of prose, scribes are scored of Two Fu's, the Pavilion of Dongpo’s a political faction headed by Prime school students. according to their penmanship. Immortal Poet and the Pavilion of Minister . He once wrote Su died at the age of 66 in Chang- Specimens of the calligrapher's Libation. a poem criticizing Wang’s reforms, zhou, Jiangsu province. handiwork hang on the wall e Pavilion of Tablets houses 102 notably a government monopoly on nearby as additional replica’s of Su’s calligraphy. Other the salt industry. Post-mortem refer- ence points nearby structures feature his trochee Banished to Huangzhou, now popularity for those hoping to poem, Memories of the Past at Red Huanggang in Hubei province, he After word of get a real feel of how Cliff, carved in stone and his painting occupied a lowly government post his death spread, the master Plums in the Moon. with no stipend. people began fever- In addition to Su, Huanggang was Wax figure of Su Dongpo in the exhibition hall of the museum Near penniless, Su built himself a ishly collecting Su’s home to renowned ancient physician small residence on Dongpo (Eastern calligraphy and Li Shizhen (1518-1593) and moveable- Slope) farm, from which he took his paintings. ey cre- type press inventor Sheng literary pseudonym and drew much of ated stone inscrip- (990-1051). his artistic inspiration. tions marking his Bronze sculpture of Su His most famous piece of cal- visits to numerous Dongpo in the museum ligraphy, Han Shi Tie, was written at places and built Dongpo. shrines in his Su spent only four years in Huang- honor. zhou before returning to the capital Although he only to witness the creation of a new gov- dwelled in the settle- ernment. He was later banished to ment of Huanggang Huizhou in Guangdong province and for four years, his again to Danzhou in Hainan island. legacy will live on in But it was in Huangzhou that Su the city forever. reached his literary zenith. ere, he The story of his wrote most of his 2,300 poems and four years in the 800 surviving letters. settlement of Huang- It was about the settlement's Red gang is showcased at

Visitors examine the exhibition carefully. View of the Dabie mountain range.