Chen An's Hermitage Stone Chamber

Chen An's Hermitage Stone Chamber

Chen An's Hermitage Stone Chamber is a cultural relic protection unit of Xiamen City.

Chen An's Hermitage Stone Chamber is located on the northern mountainside of Jinbang Mountain in Wucun, Siming District. Chen An, courtesy name Xiru and alias Changhui, lived approximately from 805 to 876 AD and was a renowned literati figure in Xiamen during the late Tang Dynasty. According to the *Genealogy of the Southern Chen Clan*, he was the tenth-generation ancestor of the Southern Branch of the Chen family. A gifted poet, he began composing poetry at the age of ten and presented his works to the Governor of Qingyuan (at that time, Quanzhou was under the military jurisdiction of Qingyuan, and the governor was its highest administrative officer) when he was just thirteen. At seventeen, he wrote the *Fu on Su Wu Visiting Emperor Wu of Han’s Mausoleum Temple*, earning the admiration of scholars. Chen An’s father died early, and he was deeply filial to his mother. He did not leave home to take the imperial examinations until he was over forty, during which time he also traveled across the Central Plains and regions such as Wu and Chu. He sat for the civil service exams a total of eighteen times but never succeeded, leading him to adopt the self-styled title “Old Man of the Examination Hall.” In his later years, he spent several years in seclusion in the Zhongnan Mountains of Shaanxi. In the spring of 874 AD, the first year of the Qianfu era of the Tang Dynasty, he returned to Xiamen due to matters related to his children’s marriages. By then nearly seventy years old, he settled in Jinbang Mountain after completing his affairs, where he spent his remaining years reading and fishing. He passed away two years later. As a result, Jinbang Mountain is also known as Old Man of the Examination Hall Mountain. Chen An once built the Immortal Welcoming Pavilion atop Jinbang Mountain. Although the pavilion no longer exists, the stone chamber where he studied remains.

The stone chamber is a cave formed by a massive natural boulder resting horizontally overhead. The entrance faces northwest, measuring 6.5 meters in width, 11 meters in depth, and 4.5 meters in height, with a total area of 71.5 square meters. Above the entrance, the two running script characters “Diaoyin” (Fishing Hermit) are engraved. When Zhu Xi, a scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty, served as the magistrate of Tong’an County, he visited Jinbang Mountain to explore the remnants of Chen An’s life and composed a poem: “Where the Old Man of the Examination Hall once read his books, / Inside the stone chamber before Jinbang Mountain. / Though man has gone and stone remains as yesterday, / How many springs have seen orioles sing and flowers fall?”

In 1982, it was designated as one of the first municipal-level cultural relic protection units by the Xiamen Municipal People’s Government.

In 1995, reinforcement and maintenance work were carried out on the stone chamber.

Protected area: A boundary extending 30 meters outward from each of the four cardinal points of the stone chamber.

Kaiyuan Subdistrict: Kaiyuan Subdistrict, Siming District, Xiamen City, Fujian Province

Kaiyuan Subdistrict covers an area of 5.7 square kilometers and has a registered population of 63,362. It governs 12 communities: Shen Tian, Xi An, Mei Ren, Xi Bian, Hou Jiang, Hu Bin, Yang Tai Shan, Mei Hu, Xi Wang, Hu Xi, Keng Nei, and Tian Hu.

Kaiyuan Subdistrict code: 350203007

The subdistrict office is located at No. 489 Hexiang West Road and governs 12 communities: ~010_Shen Tian Community, ~013_Xi An Community, ~015_Mei Ren Community, ~017_Xi Bian Community, ~020_Hou Jiang Community… Kaiyuan Subdistrict detailed information++