Hanshan Temple Scenic Spot of Suzhou is a provincial scenic spot of Jiangsu, which lies on the side of the ancient canal 3.5 kilometers west to Suzhou and covers 45 hectares. With many places of interest and four provincial preservation units of historical and cultural relics in the scenic spot, the humanistic scenes are plentiful and the natural sights are beautiful.
The Hanshan Temple was originally built during the reign of Tianjian in the Liang Dynasty. The poem of " Mooring to the Maple Bridge at Night " by Zhang Ji of the Tang Dynasty is so oft-quoted and widely loved that the poetic rhyme and the bell-tolling sounds have made the Hanshan Temple famous at home and abroad. The characteristic tourist program of listening to the bell tolls of the Hanshan Temple on the New Year's Eve has been an exceptionally grand occasion since its beginning in 1979. On every New Year's Eve, thousands of visitors at home and abroad gather inside and outside the temple to listen to the one hundred and eight bell tolls and pray for luck and happiness in the new year. The Maple Bridge and the Jiangchun Bridge stretch over the ancient canal and are simple and elegant in shape. Looking into the distance on the bridges, the sights of hills, waters and fields outside the city of Suzhou leaping up into the eyes and are unfolding in all their majesty.
Facing water at two sides and lying side by side with the Maple Bridge , the Tieling Pass is the only relic extant of the military and civilian people of Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty resisting the aggressors. Sitting at the communication center of water and land in the southwest of Suzhou , the Tieling Pass looks rather strategically located, which is typical of passes in the land of waters south of the Yangtse River . The old Maple Bridge Town was a flourishing market place in the prosperous times of the Tang Dynasty. With simple and elegant buildings, with streets in front and rivers behind, with high and low houses, with prosperous commerce, and with distinctive style, the town is an old one in the land of waters south of the Yangtse River with tourism, enjoyment and shopping integrated as one. In the Alternative Hanshan Yard, the oriental cherries are in full bloom and the osmanthus is sweet-scented. Though there are no towering old trees, the green trees shade the yard. The Poem-hunting Corridor, the Floating Star Pavilion, the rope-fastening rock, the old temple with yellow walls and lingering bell tolls are all the resorts to recall the past and find out the secret. The huge 22 meters long three-dimensional model of "The Famous Historical Relics of the Maple Bridge" in the Exhibition Hall of Historical Relics and Materials of the Maple Bridge is a comprehensive expression of traditional arts and crafts of Suzhou and artistically reproduce the prosperous sights and simple folk customs outside the Changmen Gate of Suzhou at the end of the Ming Dynasty and at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. |
