The three Su - the father Su Xun and his sons Su Shi and Su Zhe - were a Northern Song literary family from Meishan, in the plain south of Chengdu, and between them they occupy an unusual position in Chinese culture: all three are counted among the great prose writers of the dynasty, and one of them, Su Shi, is probably the most widely loved poet and essayist in the language. His pen name, Su Dongpo, attached itself to a whole cuisine and to dozens of places across the country. The family home in Meishan became a shrine to the three of them and has been maintained for centuries.
The shrine and its gardens
The complex is laid out as a scholar's garden as much as a temple: halls with images and ancestral tablets of the three men, courtyards planted with bamboo, ancient trees and osmanthus, a pond, covered walkways, steles and pavilions, and walls of calligraphy. It sits beside a river in the middle of the town, and the whole site is quiet enough to spend an hour reading in. The halls display editions of the Su texts, reproductions of calligraphy and paintings, and objects associated with the family and with Su Shi's career as an official, which took him from the capital to a series of postings and exiles across the empire.
Why Su Shi matters
Su Shi lived in the eleventh century, served in government, was exiled twice for his political views, and wrote throughout - poems, essays, letters, memorials, and the informal prose sketches that he made into a literary form. His work covers friendship, food, drink, landscape, family, failure and the passage of time, in a register that is direct and unsentimental, and it is memorised by schoolchildren and quoted by everyone. He is also credited with popularising a braised pork dish that still carries his name, which is reason enough for a food-minded visitor to make the trip.
Practical notes
Meishan is about an hour from Chengdu by high-speed train or by road, and the shrine is a short taxi ride from the station, in the centre of town. It charges a modest admission, opens daily and needs about an hour and a half. Because the labels are mostly in Chinese, the visit is more rewarding with a guide or with some background reading, but the garden alone justifies the trip. Meishan is also a good stop en route to Leshan and Emei, which lie in the same direction south of Chengdu.
