The Rocks at A-Má Temple are Inscribed with Resonating Poetry

The A-Má Temple has the richest collection of poetry in Macao by poets of modern times. In the 52nd year of reign of Emperor Qianlong of Qing dynasty (1787), Zhang Daoyuan, a native of Shanxi province who was the magistrate of Guangzhou by then, came to Macao to take care of official affairs. He had inscribed an eight-lined poem with five Chinese characters to each line onto a rock in the Temple.

Poets that visited the Temple at a later time were inspired by Zhang’s poem to create resonating verses based upon the rhyming character at the end of each line in his poem. So far, there are over 10 resonating poems inscribed on the rocks of the Temple by different poets, namely Xu Duiyuan from Yunnan province who was the magistrate of Xiangshan County at the time, Manchurian general Ximi Yanga, Pan Feisheng from Panyu district and Zhang Yutang, who had inscribed the Chinese characters “海鏡” onto a rock with his ink-dipped fingers.

Other poets who had their inscription on rocks in the Temple were Wu Qibao and Huang Guopei of Xiangshan county, Zhao Guangtao and Chen Yingke of Nanhai city, Jian Zholiang of Shunde city, Luo Huiqing of Zhejiang province and Pan Shicheng of Panyu district, who came along with Imperial Commissioner Keying to Macau in 1858 to take care of the negotiations with United States and France that resulted in the respective “Treaty of Mong-Há” and “Treaty of Whampoa”.