The Mausoleum in Lieshi Park, Changsha

The Mausoleum in Lieshi Park, Changsha

Lovely Lieshi park – with its woodland groves, azalea and magnolia gardens and expansive, carp-filled boating lake is an oasis of peace and birdsong in the heart of downtown Changsha. In the early morning you will see pensioners practicing Qi Kung on the lakeshore and brilliantly coloured woodpeckers and finches in the trees. At the park’s centre is a poignant modern pagoda, reached by stone steps from all the cardinal points. It’s memorial to the people of Changsha who lost their lives in the Japanese and Revolutionary of the mid-Twentieth Century, remembered in large marble hallways within the pagoda, with galleries haunting black and white photos.