Yuan Mei was a Chinese painter and poet of the Qing Dynasty.
10 Facts About Yuan Mei
2.
Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang, Zhejiang province, to a cultured family who had never before attained high office.
3.
Yuan Mei achieved the degree of jinshi in 1739 at the young age of 23 and was immediately appointed to the Hanlin Academy.
4.
Yuan Mei's works reflected his interest in Chan Buddhism and the supernatural, at the expense of Daoism and institutional Buddhism - both of which he rejected.
5.
On some of those visits, Yuan Mei kept journal entries, representative of which is the You Guilin zhu shan ji.
6.
Yuan Mei was opposed to the strict moral and aesthetic norms of his day and valued creativity and self-expression.
7.
Yuan Mei was both famed and criticized for his Sui Garden where women would gather to compose and recite poetry.
8.
Two of Yuan Mei's sisters enjoyed praise for their literary talent.
9.
Yuan Mei resented what he regarded as the corruption of Chinese food by Manchu cooks.
10.
Yuan Mei published his recipes and thoughts on cooking in his 1792 gastronomic manual and cookbook The Way of Eating.