Huanhuaxi Park

This guide to Huanhuaxi Park in Chengdu centers on the bend in Flower Rinsing Creek where poet Du Fu built a thatched hut around the year 760 after fleeing war and famine, and the awkward visit from an old friend that inspired his poem A Guest Arrives, written for having nothing worthy to serve. It follows the legend of the washerwoman who gave Huanhua Stream its name, and Xue Tao, the poet and courtesan who later pressed scarlet paper here using its water. Walk the bank slowly, past the same water Du Fu once apologized over.