Mount Qingyuan lies just north of Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China.

It is perhaps most famous for being the spot where “Old Man Rock,” often claimed to be Lao Zi (a.k.a. Lao Tzu), the founder of Taoism, has been sitting around now for well over a thousand years.

I first visited the spot in 1993. During our most recent visit back to China, I took my daughters there one afternoon.

The China.org.cn Web site spins Mount Qingyuan this way:

Located in the northern suburbs of Quanzhou, it is a beautiful rocky hill with clear streams and luxuriant woods. It has been a scenic attraction ever since the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and is known as the “first fairyland of Fujian.” The statue of Lao Zi- forefather and founder of Taoism-in sitting position on the hill is 5 meters tall, 7 meters deep, and 7 meters wide. It was made of a single piece of rock during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The smiling face and flying beard of the statue bring to life the kindly character of this legendary old man.

Mount Qingyuan’s surrounds, or my memory of the area, or both have changed in the past 13 years. I recall Old Man Rock being in a fairly remote area away from Quanzhou, but apparently the city has matured and developed to the point that Mount Qingyuan now qualifies as being in a Quanzhou “suburb.” The road in and parking area are a bit more hospitable as well.

Anyway, to start a three-post record of our visit to this attraction — “It’s not easy to pad these things out to 30 minutes, you know…” — here are a few photos remarking “the way in” to see the Old Man.

My daughters just outside the entrance to the park:

Here, you can read this for yourself, “General Description of Hill Qingyuan,” which calls the spot “a grotesquely charming and relaxing place.” And I just love those end-of-line hypenation rules:

You can read this for yourself too:

Next time: The Old Man himself….

A thousand years of Taoist thought all compacted into two easy volumes:

In this video, we get to see a bit of Quanzhou’s streets and traffic, both which seem of much better quality than those just a few kilometres away in Qingyang.

I mean, the streets here are cleaner and wider & the buildings more modern, motorcycle riders seem to cut each other off with much more refined manners than the ones down in Jinjiang, and pedestrians step into the lanes of oncoming traffic with such a genteel carriage that it’s no wonder foreigners in the 16th century loved this place so.

By the way, Quanzhou is sometimes called “The City of Coral Trees.” Says China.org.cn,

Quanzhou is situated on the northern bank of the Jinjiang River in Fujian Province, facing the sea. It is an ancient cultural city and was an important trade port during the Middle Ages. It is also the hometown of many overseas Chinese.

With its mountain slopes and magnificent bay, Quanzhou has long been regarded as the most attractive town on China’s southeast coast. During the Five Dynasties (907-960), the city was surrounded by Indian coral trees, from which it got the name “city of coral trees.” As Quanzhou is in the southern subtropical zone and has a maritime monsoon climate, it is humid and warm all the year round.

In this scene, we’re traveling north from central Quanzhou toward “Old Man Rock,” purported by some to be a figure of Lao Tzu himself, pictures of which are coming in a later blog post.

This time, a few pictures of my daughters during our play day in Quanzhou’s East Lake park.

The park has quite a few features–including one of those small Chinese Zoos filled with bored (at least) or miserable (at worst) animals; we’ll skip the pictures we took there–but otherwise it’s a pleasant place to spend a morning or afternoon.

It was only very sparsely populated during our visit–on a weekday–so we could take the sights in without having to go elbow to elbow with any sprawling weekend crowds.

On to the pics….

Elder Daughter near the park entrance:

A “grotto” we discovered:

The girls camped inside the grotto:

Elder Daughter enjoying a horse ride–the horse’s owners are from near Huang Shan, we discovered:

Younger Daughter enjoying the same–she decided, based on its color, that the horse’s name must be ‘Ginger’, being the astute and devoted “Black Beauty” fan that she is:

Related: Dehua Porcelain hails from near Quanzhou: