Caishiji Scenic Area

Caishiji — Colored Stone Cliff — is a stretch of reddish limestone cliff above the Yangtze where Li Bai, the greatest poet of the Tang dynasty, spent his final years and is buried. The site has been a place of literary pilgrimage since shortly after his death in 762, and the cliff face is covered with carved inscriptions added by scholars, officials, and fellow poets over the following thirteen centuries — a palimpsest of Chinese literary admiration compressed into stone.

The approach by ferry across the Yangtze is the proper way to arrive: the cliff appears from the river with the green hillside above it and the inscriptions catching the light from water level. The tomb is set back from the river in a grove of trees, modest but well-maintained. The surrounding park has good views of the Yangtze bends both upstream and downstream. Allow two to three hours including the ferry.

things to do sight
A story
Li Bai arrived in Ma'anshan in 761, the year before his death, and is said to have drowned in the Yangtze at Caishiji while drunk and attempting to embrace the moon's reflection in the water. The story is almost certainly apocryphal — he more likely died of illness in a relative's home — but it has proved irresistible to Chinese literary imagination and is retold with apparently sincere conviction at the memorial site.