Qualla: Lotus Hill https://qualla.com/lotus-hill en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:18 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Lotus Hill https://qualla.com/lotus-hill Lotus Hill: Introduction https://qualla.com/lotus-hill/ The name tells two stories at once. In Cantonese and Mandarin alike, Lianhuashan means Lotus Hill — and the hill does have lotuses, more than a hundred species celebrated each summer in a festival that draws visitors from across Guangdong. But the dramatic cliffs and deep alcoves that make the hill so striking are not natural. They are the work of quarrymen from the Western Han dynasty, who spent centuries cutting stone from this hillside and left behind a landscape of sheer faces and shadowed recesses that the local imagination eventually filled with legend. What geology and labor created, myth completed.

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]]> Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/0/d/lotus-hill-wp/ws0d-lotus-hill-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lotus Hill: What the Stone-Cutters Left Behind https://qualla.com/lotus-hill/ The Western Han dynasty ran from 206 BCE to 9 CE, and during that long period, workers quarried the reddish sandstone of Lianhuashan extensively. Stone from this hill was transported down the Pearl River for construction across the region. The quarrying left something unexpected:...

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]]> Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/0/d/lotus-hill-wp/ws0d-lotus-hill-what-the-stone-cutters-left-behind.mp3 0:06 2 full Lotus Hill: The Dragon and the Lotus https://qualla.com/lotus-hill/ The legend attached to Lotus Hill has the directness of a folk tale that has been refined over many tellings. A vicious dragon lived in the South Sea, the story goes, and used its power to raise storms over the Pearl River estuary — flooding farmland, capsizing fishing boats, bri...

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]]> Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/0/d/lotus-hill-wp/ws0d-lotus-hill-the-dragon-and-the-lotus.mp3 0:06 3 full Lotus Hill: Seasons of Flowers https://qualla.com/lotus-hill/ Lotus Hill's two annual festivals mark the hill's living identity as clearly as its geological and mythological one. The Lotus Festival runs from June through August, when more than a hundred species of lotus bloom across the park's water features. Lotus flowers have deep resonan...

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]]> Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/0/d/lotus-hill-wp/ws0d-lotus-hill-seasons-of-flowers.mp3 0:06 4 full Lotus Hill: A Park Between Two Cities https://qualla.com/lotus-hill/ Lotus Hill sits 30 kilometers from central Guangzhou and 60 nautical miles from Hong Kong — close enough to both that it draws visitors from each direction. Its designation as a 4A-level national park (one tier below the maximum AAAAA classification) confirms its status as a reco...

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]]> Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/0/d/lotus-hill-wp/ws0d-lotus-hill-a-park-between-two-cities.mp3 0:06 5 full