Wudangshan Mountain

 

 

 

Wudangshan Mountain scenic area is located in the northwest part of Hubei Province. It is linking eastward with Xiangfan city, a famous cultural and historical city in China, and facing the massive Danjiangkou Reservoir, which is the water source of South to North Water Project. And behind it is the Shennongjia virgin forest area. It is one of the world cultural heritages issued by UNESCO and one of Chinese key scenic areas. It is the famous Taoism Mountain and cradle-land of Wudang Boxing. The main peak of Wudangshan Mountain is Tainzhu Peak with the altitude of 1612 meters.

It is in humidity and warmth with the annual rainfall of 900 to 1200 millimeters. The rainfall mainly centralizes in summer, besides it is one of the storm centers in Hubei Province. The local plant belongs to north subtropical kind. The trees include pine trees, birches and so on. There are more than 400 kinds of herb plants like stramonium flowers. In around 30 kilometers, there are 72 peaks, 36 rocks, 24 gullies, 11 caves, 3 ponds, 9 springs, 10 pools, 9 wells, 10 stones and 9 daises

The famous travel expert and geographer Xu Xiake of Ming Dynasty highly appraised this mountain to be elegant and unique. Many grand and magnificent Daoism architectural groups as well as multiple cultural relics and sites are kept well. During the Ming Dynasty, there are 33 grand architectural groups, 39 bridges, 12 pavilions and halls. The total area is over 1600,000 square meters and it covers more than 20,000 rooms, which extends around 70 kilometers. The well-preserved buildings include: Xuanwumen, Yuzhengong, Mozhenjing, Zixiaogong and so on.it is the palace on the heaven.

 

 

 

The golden palace on the peak of Tianzhu summit has the weight of 90 tons, which is the largest bronze building at present. The local handicrafts such as dragon-head stick, jade carving, woodcarving, chinaware are very unique. The famous local tea is Zhengjing tea.

Wudang School is one of famous Kungfu centers in China. Wudangshan Mountain is considered to be the fairy land. It is the self-cultivated center of Zhenwudadi, who is an authoritative immortal in Chinese legend. As the Taoism center, it is widely famous. Many ascetic and pilgrims since ancient times like Yinxi in East Zhou Dynasty, Tao Hongjing, a famous Taoist in Jin dynasty, Sun Simiao, who was the medicine master in Tang Dynasty, Lv Dongbing,who was one of the eight immortals in folklores, were all choosing this place as their cultivation home.

The Taoism music in Wudangshan Mountain is respected to be the fairy music and the heavenly sound. The Kongfu of Wudangshan is identical to Shaolin Kungfu, which is famous for its Buddhism and its top Kungfu. There is a saying goes like this: learning Shaolin in north and Wudang in south. It is said that the Taoist is able to fly over the bottomless cliffs like the crane. They wear the long garment in light green or white. In fact they indeed could “fly” by way of exercising the secret of Wudang Kungfu. Generally an obstacle or wall with the height of 4-5 meters, they are able to easily fly over without any help. That is true; Chinese Kung fu in different schools or different religion schools is shown diversely and colorfully. The Shaolin Kungfu is characterized of its hardness, the sword, knife or other sharp arms can’t hurt the Shao-Lin Kungfu exercisers at all, which is proofed in many Kungfu Shows ,while Wudang Kungfu is featured of floating like cloud, they are flying like crane, and moving like cloud, running like wind and staying like stone. They are indeed in mystery; furthermore, Taoism Kungfu is the most mysterious for people to understand both in China and abroad. Generally the shadow boxing or Taijiquan is invented in Wudang Mountain by a 100-year-old Kungfu master, Zhang Sanfeng, which currently is extremely famous at home and abroad.

The integration of natural landscape and cultural landscape in Wudangshan Mountain give tourists more space. The best time for travel in Wudangshan Mountain is spring and autumn. The dishes of Wudangshan Mountain belong to Sichuan Cuisine or Hubei Cuisine, which is one of the seven cuisines in China. Besides, the Taoism cuisine is also typical and unique.

The Taoism food of Wudangshan Mountain is divided into two parts：banquet dinner and mass dinner. The local food is mainly featured of the Sichuan-style cuisine. The famous local festivals include: March 3 Temple fair and Sept 9 Temple fair as well as the Wudangshan International Tourism festival. Interestingly, each year, the Kungfu exchange show is also held in town of Wudangshan. Meanwhile the landscape photo exhibition, painting and calligraphy exhibition, root-carving and stone-carving, cultural relic exhibition and the tourism product exhibition are also showing in the same year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

1, don’t point at the god statues no matter how marvelous they are. Do not facing the statues with your backs, don’t step on the doorsills and speak aloud.
2, do not ask the Taoist’s ages it is a taboo.
3, when you plan to pay tribute to the god ,please keep calm and silent, or do not speak the impolite or dirty words. The megrante, plum, the colorful flowers, chicken and dog and so on are forbidden to be the tributes. Before your visit, please not eat the goose, tortoise, beef, dog meat, pork, onion, leek, garlic and ginger. No smoking.