Lotus-Loving Pavilion

Lotus-Loving Pavilion

By the Shaoshui River stands a pavilion with a marble plaque bearing three gilded seal script characters: “爱莲亭” (Lotus-Loving Pavilion), which are said to commemorate the “Lotus Pond.”

In fact, the pavilion inside the “Lotus Pond” is not called the “Lotus-Loving Pavilion” but the “Gentleman’s Pavilion.” The pond and pavilion were built to honor the renowned Northern Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian scholar Zhou Dunyi. Zhou once “served as the acting magistrate of Shaoyang while holding the post of Tongshi in Yongzhou,” residing, traveling, and lecturing here, leaving behind significant achievements. Later, during the Ming Dynasty, locals in Shaoyang established the Lotus-Loving Academy (now the site of the Shaoyang Municipal People’s Government) to commemorate this notable figure who contributed greatly to Shaoyang. In 1911, the Lotus-Loving Girls’ School was founded, and in 1922 it was renamed the Shaoyang Private Lotus-Loving Girls’ Rural Normal School. Why were the pond called “Lotus-Loving,” the academy also named “Lotus-Loving,” and both the girls’ school and normal school prefixed with “Lotus-Loving”? The essay “In Praise of the Lotus” (《爱莲说》), Zhou Dunyi’s timeless masterpiece celebrated for both its literary artistry and moral message, was once included in middle school Chinese textbooks.

Zhou Dunyi loved the lotus because it “emerges unstained from the mud,” hence the pond was named “Lotus-Loving.” The school adopted the name “Lotus-Loving” to cultivate noble and outstanding talents, as well as to honor this pioneer of Neo-Confucianism. Zhou referred to the lotus as the “gentleman among flowers,” which is why the pavilion in the Lotus Pond was called the “Gentleman’s Pavilion.” Its design and scale far surpass those of the present “Lotus-Loving Pavilion.” The “Lotus Pond” is approximately eighty meters long and sixty meters wide, forming an irregular circle. The “Gentleman’s Pavilion” stands in the center of the pond, a two-story pavilion structure that once housed a library. Flanking the pavilion are wooden-railed corridors leading to the school gate in the front and the teaching building in the back, forming a bridge corridor that spans the entire pond. The pond is covered with fragrant lotus blossoms. Weeping willows with long, draping branches surround the pond, swaying in the wind. It was in this idyllic setting that Zhou Dunyi wrote “In Praise of the Lotus.” The journey from the Lotus-Loving Academy to the Lotus-Loving Girls’ School was fraught with hardship. Countless dedicated individuals devoted their lives to nurturing teachers for national education.