Discover Chengdu
Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum
杜甫草堂博物馆
The garden where the Tang poet Du Fu sheltered during the An Lushan rebellion and wrote some 240 surviving poems. Bamboo groves, ponds and a reconstructed thatched hut make it the most peaceful green space in central Chengdu, poetry aside.
The story
What makes this place special
Du Fu arrived in Chengdu in 759, fleeing the chaos of the An Lushan rebellion, and lived for about four years in a thatched hut by Flower Rinsing Creek. Those years were the most productive of his life - around 240 of his poems were written here, including 'My Thatched Hut Was Torn Apart by Autumn Gales' and 'The Prime Minister of Shu', the poem about visiting Zhuge Liang's shrine. The hut itself did not survive. The main buildings in the park date from the early sixteenth century under the Ming and were extensively rebuilt in 1811; wealthy families paid for its upkeep for generations and had their names carved on a wall on site. It was made a national heritage site in 1961.
What you’ll discover
A large walled garden of bamboo, water channels and old trees - the park is the main pleasure - with a line of memorial halls along an axis. The Du Gongbu Memorial Hall displays his life and work and a library of editions including Song-dynasty woodblock printings; the Hall of Great Poets has a sixteen-metre mural with statues of twelve major Chinese poets; and there is a reconstructed thatched cottage with study, bedroom and kitchen, which is a twentieth-century guess at what the hut was like rather than a restoration.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Come for the garden, not the buildings. This is one of the most pleasant places to walk in Chengdu - bamboo, water, plum and old trees - and the halls are a twenty-minute part of a two-hour visit.
- Read one Du Fu poem before you arrive, ideally the one about the hut being torn apart by autumn wind. Without that the site is a pretty park with plaques; with it, the creek and the reconstructed hut have a point.
- The reconstructed cottage is at the far end from the main gate and a lot of visitors turn back before reaching it.
- Plum blossom in late winter and early spring is the local reason to come, and the park is a well-known spot for it.
- It sits near the Sichuan Museum and the Qingyang Palace on the same side of town, which makes a sensible half-day without crossing the city.
When to come
Early morning, when local people are walking and practising in the park and it feels like a garden rather than a monument. Late winter for the plum blossom; the dense shade makes it bearable in summer.
Getting around
Good. The park is large but flat, with wide paved and gravel paths, bridges with gentle ramps in most places and benches throughout. A wheelchair can do nearly all of it; the limits are a few stepped thresholds into the memorial halls and some narrower garden paths around the reconstructed cottage. Distance is the main consideration - it is a big park.
Worth knowing before you go
Skip the modern memorial halls and head straight for the Maowu thatched hut and the plum garden at the back - that is where the atmosphere is. Early morning is best, when local retirees practise taiji by the ponds.
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