MIANYANG (Sichuan), September 23-- A four-day cultural festival opened Sunday to mark the 1,300th anniversary of the birthday of the celebrated Chinese poet Li Bai, in his hometown of Jiangyou City in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

A park housing stone tablets, which opened to the public today, will enable visitors to enjoy the Chinese arts of painting and calligraphy, as well as horticulture. In the park is a museum dedicated to the Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet laureate.

Tours of Li Bai's birthplace, seminars, poetry recitals and other performances will be included in the festival, which is jointly hosted by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Chinese Writers Association.

More than 1,000 of Li Bai's poems are extant.

-- source: Xinhua News Agency

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