东坡书院 Dōngpō shū yuàn, the Dongpo Academy, stands at the edge of 中和镇 Zhōnghé zhèn in 儋州市 Dānzhōu shì, on the site where 苏轼 Sū Shì, the poet and official known as 苏东坡 Sū Dōngpō, taught after he was exiled to this coast in 1097. It is the single most important historical building in the west of Hainan and the reason the town is on any itinerary at all: a walled compound of halls, galleries and gardens, rebuilt many times over nine hundred years but always on the same ground, where a man at the end of his career turned a posting nobody wanted into a school. Tickets are a few tens of yuan and a slow morning is the right amount of time.
Su Shi was sent to 儋州 in 1097 at the age of sixty, the furthest punishment short of execution in the Song system, and he arrived to find a poor and thinly settled coast with no school to speak of. He taught anyway, with the help of a few local admirers who built him a hall, and the 载酒堂 zài jiǔ táng, the Hall of Carrying Wine, takes its name from a line of his own verse. The town credits him with the island’s first serious literary education, and the men who studied with him went on to take degrees. When he was pardoned in 1100 and began the long journey home he died the following year, and the coast never stopped building on his memory.
The compound you walk through today is not his building but it keeps his geography. The buildings are Qing and later, arranged on a north-south axis with a gate, a courtyard, the main hall and a stele gallery, with a garden, a lotus pond and a pavilion off to one side, and the whole thing walled and shaded by old trees. The steles are the substance of the visit, recording the academy’s rebuildings and the honours later dynasties paid him, and there is an 东坡井 Dōngpō jǐng, the well the town attributes to him, in the lanes outside. The 东坡像, a seated statue, is where most visitors stop for the photograph.
What makes it worth more than an hour is the town around it. 中和 was the seat of 儋州 for centuries, and its lanes still hold grey-brick houses, arcaded 骑楼 shopfronts on the old commercial street, and courtyards behind stone thresholds; walking out of the academy into the market street is the other half of the visit. The town is also where the local food belongs: a 洛基粽 from a shop, a bowl of 米烂 in the morning, and the 东坡绵蹄, the braised knuckle named for the poet, on a restaurant menu in the evening. Come in the morning before the coach parties, and leave the afternoon for the lanes.
Practicalities
Tickets. The academy charges an entrance ticket in the region of ¥20 to ¥40. It covers the halls, the stele gallery and the garden, and there is a small souvenir and tea shop by the gate. There is no ticket for the town itself.
Opening hours. The compound is open roughly 08:00 to 18:00, with the last entry in the late afternoon. It is quietest before ten, when the tour coaches have not yet arrived, and the light in the courtyard is best in the first two hours.
Getting there. 东坡书院 is in 中和镇, 儋州市, about forty minutes by road west of 那大 Nàdà, the city centre. The nearest high-speed rail stop is 白马井站 Báimǎjǐng zhàn on the west ring line, from which a taxi to 中和 takes about twenty-five minutes.
Closing day. The academy is open every day of the year with no weekly closing day. Individual halls may be shut briefly for maintenance or in the week around Chinese New Year, when the town fills with local visitors.
flowcloud would say that a man sent to the far end of the empire at sixty, stripped of office and given a poor coast to live on, taught school, dug a well and left a town a reason to be proud of itself for nine hundred years, and that a hall named after carrying wine is a better monument than most that conquerors build.
Getting there: 中和镇 is the destination, reached by road from 那大 in about forty minutes or by taxi from 白马井站 on the west ring line in about twenty-five; the academy is signposted from the market street and the whole town is walkable once you are there.