In China, there are “four famous buildings”: Yueyang Tower, Tengwang Pavilion, Yellow Crane Tower and Penglai Pavilion. Yellow Crane Tower is said to be 1,800 years old.

According to legend, it was once a tavern. One day, a Taoist priest visited the tavern. The tavern’s hostess treated him to 1,000 cups of liquor. In order to thank her, the priest painted a yellow crane on the wall before leaving. Whenever the crane heard music, it would come down from the wall and start dancing. The tavern became instantly famous and business got better and better.

Ten years later, the Taoist priest returned to the tavern. He blew a “dizi” (a Chinese flute), and the yellow crane jumped down from the wall. The priest leapt onto the crane and flew off into the sky. To commemorate the Taoist priest, the tavern’s hostess built a tower called Yellow Crane Tower on the original site of the tavern. Over the course of the next thousand years, many famous people visited the Yellow Crane Tower. Unfortunately, the original tower was burnt down to the ground about 100 years ago. Today’s Yellow Crane Tower (in Wuhan, stand on it you can see the panorama of the Yangtze River) is a restoration of the original one.