Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion

Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion

Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion are Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

“Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion” are parts of the Huang Zunxian Memorial Hall and are important modern historical sites and representative architecture. Renjing Pavilion was built in 1884, and Ronglu Mansion in 1881. Both were constructed by Huang Zunxian, a renowned patriotic poet, outstanding diplomat, thinker, politician, and educator of modern China.

Renjing Pavilion was Huang Zunxian’s study. It faces southwest and is situated to the northeast, covering a construction area of over 900 square meters. The name of the building is inspired by a famous line from the Eastern Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming: “I built my hut in a populated world, yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.” The three characters “Renjing Pavilion” on the lintel were written by the Japanese calligrapher Oki Naruse Atsushi. It is a brick-and-wood structure in a garden style. The pavilion includes halls, resting pavilions, a seven-character corridor, a five-step tower, a ten-step pavilion, a Rainbow Bridge Pavilion, a fish pond, rockeries, and flower beds. It holds high historical, scientific, and unique artistic value, as well as profound cultural significance.

Ronglu Mansion was the former residence of Huang Zunxian. It covers an area of about 680 square meters and contains 31 rooms. It retains the characteristics of the traditional quadrangle courtyard and hall-row structure of the Central Plains region, and is a traditional Hakka residential building in a three-hall, two-row layout. The entire building faces south and is structured along north-south and east-west axes to form nine halls and seven courtyards. The center consists of three main halls, flanked by two wing halls, all two stories high, arranged symmetrically. Three kitchens were added on the west side. The interior spaces are spacious with well-placed lighting, and the artistic decorations such as colored paintings and carvings fully reflect the characteristics of Hakka culture.

Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion provide vivid physical materials for the study of Meizhou’s humanistic history and traditional Hakka residential architecture.

In May 2013, Renjing Pavilion and Ronglu Mansion were announced as part of the seventh batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

Huang Zunxian (1848–1905), styled Gongdu and also known as the Master of Renjing Pavilion, was from Jiaying Prefecture, Guangdong (now Meixian). He came from a bureaucratic family. He began learning poetry at the age of 10. In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1867), he passed the imperial examination for xiucai (a scholar degree). In the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), he was selected as a tribute student (a higher scholarly rank) and the following year went to the capital to take the provincial examination but did not pass. Huang Zunxian’s early poems already exhibited a certain spirit of innovation. He criticized the tendency in literary creation to imitate antiquity, stating, “The ancients discard the dregs, yet people drool at the sight,” and proclaimed, “My hand writes what my mouth speaks — how can the ancients bind me?” He also collected and refined Hakka mountain songs... More details on Huang Zunxian++

Further reading:

· Third Batch of Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level