Rich tapestry of Buddhist, Taoist and tea traditions

A monk at the temple.[Photo by Zhi Yanling/For China Daily]

"The county has a deep-rooted culture of Buddhism and tea. You can understand Zen through drinking tea here. We're also promoting the local tea culture in schools and communities," says Chai Liming, Xinchang's executive deputy head. To understand Taoist culture, Chongyang Palace in the county's suburbs is a good place to visit. Located at the Chuanyan Nineteen Peaks Scenic Area, the temple has attracted many Taoism masters, and poets such as Li Bai.

One can pay respect to the Taoist gods and ancient philosophers, including Confucius, and enjoy the traditional Chinese architecture of the complex.

In the distance, the 19 peaks standing in an unbroken line represent a wonderful photo opportunity at sunset. Each peak has a different shape, such as a saddle and a lion, and some well-known Chinese swordsmen TV series were filmed there due to their natural beauty.

Xinchang's beautiful landscapes have attracted many poets since ancient times. The largest collection of Tang poetry, Complete Tang Poems, contains about 49,000 lyric poems by more than 2,200 poets, and in 1991, Zhu Yuebing, a scholar from Xinchang, claimed that about 400 of the poets visited Tianmu Mountain and wrote poems praising its beauty.

He concluded that poets in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) including Li Bai, Du Fu and Meng Haoran, started from Hangzhou and Shaoxing, and traveled along the rivers to Tianmu Mountain and Tiantai county's Tiantai Mountain, a journey of about 190 kilometers.

They composed well-known poems to describe the picturesque scenery and their excitement when they were climbing the mountains. Zhu called it the "road of Tang poetry in the east of Zhejiang province".