Fortunately, we found the "Bird Paradise" described in Mr. Ba Jin's beautiful article.

When I was young, I only read a few love books by Mr. Ba Jin. I didn't expect that when traveling, I could follow his essays to find the prototypes of the scenery, just like the ancient people looking for Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Spring" and the recent "My Altay" exploration craze. "Bird's Paradise" is an essay written by the modern writer Ba Jin in 1933. It tells the story of the author and his friends visiting the "Bird Paradise", where they saw countless birds and were reluctant to leave. This is not fiction. There really is such a "Bird Paradise" in real life, in Xinhui, Guangdong Province. This garden actually has a water banyan tree that grew in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The branches of the water banyan tree hang down to the ground and penetrate into the soil to become new trunks. As time goes by, the big banyan tree has grown into a forest, with thousands of birds living in the forest, and the birds and trees depend on each other. In 1933, Ba Jin, who was already a famous writer when he was less than 30 years old, went south to Guangdong. After visiting here, he was inspired and wrote the famous essay "Bird's Paradise". In 1984, Mr. Ba Jin personally wrote the four characters "Bird Paradise", and the Bird Paradise got its name from then on. In 2019, the famous article was included in the 23rd lesson of the People's Education Press Chinese textbook for fifth graders. From then on, this magical oasis was preserved forever in memory and the real world. The small village of that year has gradually developed into a bustling market town, and the birds that appeared in Ba Jin's essays may no longer exist, but the water is still the same clear water, and the forest is still the same banyan forest. Walking into this banyan forest and looking across the water, this huge green castle appears unusually quiet. Behind this lush banyan tree forest, there are many large birds - egrets, gray herons, thrushes, and of course sparrows. "There are bird sounds and bird shadows everywhere. Being there feels like listening to a concert by nature." Then this idyllic scene in Ba Jin's article was put into the painting "Bird Paradise" by the great painter Wu Guanzhong, and Xinhui continued another wonderful story. In 1992, the British Museum broke the convention of only exhibiting ancient artifacts and held the "Wu Guanzhong - Chinese Painter of the 20th Century" exhibition for the first time for a living painter, and solemnly collected Wu Guanzhong's huge new color ink painting "Bird Paradise". "I looked out over the river and saw a forest of trees covered with dense leaves... I returned and painted "Bird Paradise", focusing on the vertical and horizontal lines, the sparse and dense interweaving, the order in the chaos, attracting colorful birds, I don't know what kind of birds they are, as long as they can hide among the branches, appearing and disappearing, and then paint them casually, it will be paradise. I have painted several large, medium and small paintings of paradise in my mind, the largest one is in the British Museum." This is the inscription that Mr. Wu Guanzhong wrote for his own painting, and it may also be the best description of "Bird Paradise". The "Bird Watching Corridor" built in the scenic area is now about one kilometer long, allowing tourists to watch wild egrets from different angles. Now the promenade has been widened to 45 meters, and a new yacht pier has been built, so tourists can go boating and observe the bird ecology on the bird island up close. It is true: A unique tree that can form a forest of trees alone - the ancient banyan tree; A group of divine birds born and raised by nature - egrets; A popular and beautiful article - "Bird's Paradise"; A city where people and birds live in harmony - Jiangmen Xinhui. Tips: Early morning and late evening are the best times of day for bird watching; All the bird photos were taken on the cruise ship.