Last weekend I took an impromptu trip with my older sister to Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi province in China. After a 3.5-hour train journey from my home city to Nanchang, we dropped our bags off at a hotel, and then headed straight for Tengwang Pavilion - a must-see landmark of Nanchang.
Tengwang Pavilion, also known as the Pavilion of Prince Teng (or 'Tengwang Ge' in Chinese), is one of The Four Great Towers of China. Standing at 57.5 metres tall, with 7 storeys (3 of which are hidden storeys without windows or balconies), the Pavilion was first constructed in 653 AD, but has been destroyed and re-constructed over 28 times, until 1989.
The main building of Tengwang Palace and its entrance stairs
Each storey of the building exhibits several artwork related to the Pavilion (which I will include at the end of this blog post), but I was more intrigued by a dragon-like sculptural ornament that we spotted at the end of the roof ridges. Later we found the same ornament exhibited inside the building, and learnt that it's name is Chiwen - a mythological dragon with a fish-like bodies, believed to guard against fires and protect the building - similar to gargoyles from Gothic architecture.
Find out more about Chiwen here
On the evening we watched the immersive theatre performance "Dream of Tengwang Pavilion" which tells the story of how various famous poets and writers throughout history were inspired by the impressive sights of and around the Tengwang Pavilion.
Note the number of audience holding their phones up to record the performance!
In overall, it was quite a fun experience to visit Tengwang Pavilion, and the performance definitely gave more context to this historical landmark! Now please enjoy some of the artwork that we saw inside the Pavilion:
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