紫竹院公园

This guide to Zizhuyuan Park in Beijing traces how a modest riverside temple became a monument to Empress Dowager Li, mother of the teenage Wanli Emperor, who insisted she was the earthly form of the goddess Guanyin. You'll hear why her eunuch Feng Bao rebuilt the shrine into a royal chapel, and why gardeners filled it with bamboo to match the goddess's mythical grove. It follows the temple through the fall of the Ming and a later Qing renaming. Look for the bamboo as you walk; it wasn't planted for scenery.