Yingzhou District 颍州区

What to see

Yingzhou West Lake (颍州西湖) takes its name from Yingzhou, the name Fuyang carried from the Northern Wei onward. The lake rose under the Tang, peaked under the Song and was once ranked with the West Lake of Hangzhou. Repeated Yellow River floods after the Jiaqing reign, and the 1938 breach at Huayuankou (花园口), silted it up. The present lake was rebuilt from the 1980s about 4 kilometres southwest of the old site, with an 11.5-kilometre shoreline and about 5.74 square kilometres of water. It is a provincial scenic area, a provincial nature reserve, a national wetland park and a national 4A tourist attraction.

In the old town, the One-Person Lane (一人巷) in the Dasi community (大寺社区) of Gulou Subdistrict (鼓楼街道) is marked by a tall archway. In 1713 two families, the Lu (鹿) and the Ning (宁), quarrelled over building land; each gave up three chi of ground, leaving a narrow alley between them. The district government calls it Fuyang's own version of the Six-Foot Lane (六尺巷) of Tongcheng (桐城). The lane is now a modern shopping street.

History

Two great Song writers governed Yingzhou and left their mark on the lake. Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修) arrived from Yangzhou in 1049 and stayed a year and five months. He dredged West Lake, planted lotus, added pavilions such as the Double Willow Pavilion (双柳亭) and the Bamboo Pavilion (竹间亭), built three bridges, and founded the West Lake Academy (西湖书院) on its south shore. He later died in Yingzhou.

Su Shi (苏轼) took office in 1091 and left for Yangzhou early the next year. In that short time he wrote dozens of poems about Yingzhou, many about West Lake, and he dredged the lake again, piling the silt into a Su Causeway (苏堤). A line he wrote after leaving, "未觉杭颍谁雌雄" ("I cannot tell whether Hangzhou's lake or Ying's is the finer"), is still a point of local pride.

Food and local products

The Yingzhou Eight Bowls (颍州八大碗) is a traditional banquet of eight dishes and a Fuyang municipal intangible heritage item. The classic set is red-braised pork-skin shreds, tiger-skin pork, chicken with shiitake, four-joy meatballs, sweet-and-sour fish slices, eight-treasure rice, braised beef and scallion-braised mutton, with a salty, fragrant and slightly spicy flavour. The district's farms grow more than 70 crops, among them wheat, maize, the large green aubergine (大青茄), Liansi radish (恋思萝卜) and sweet potato.

Highlights

• Yingzhou West Lake 颍州西湖: Rebuilt from the 1980s about 4 km southwest of the historic lake shaped by Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi; a national wetland park and 4A tourist attraction.
• One-Person Lane 一人巷: Old-town alley in Gulou Subdistrict left when two feuding families each gave up three chi of land in 1713.
• Yingzhou Eight Bowls 颍州八大碗: Eight-dish banquet listed as Fuyang municipal intangible heritage.