The Orchid Pavilion (Lanting) is a memorial site about thirteen kilometres southwest of Shaoxing, marking the location where Wang Xizhi (303–361 CE), the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history, wrote the Lanting Xu preface that has defined the standard for Chinese brush calligraphy ever since. The site includes a classical garden with a winding stream, pavilions, bamboo groves, and numerous steles bearing reproductions of Wang Xizhi's calligraphy in different interpretations and periods.
The garden is modest in scale but carries an exceptional literary weight: for Chinese visitors who have spent years learning to write by copying Wang Xizhi's style, this is an intensely significant pilgrimage. For those less immersed in Chinese calligraphic tradition, the garden itself is pleasant, the story of the wine-floating poetry gathering is charming, and the combination of bamboo forest, stream, and stone inscriptions gives the site a contemplative quality independent of the specific historical associations. Buses from central Shaoxing reach the site in about thirty minutes.