Picasso and Zhang admired each other. During their meeting, Picasso gave Zhang 600 artworks, all of which were his imitations of Chinese paintings, and asked Zhang to teach him how to draw bamboo, says Li Junxi, a guide in Zhang's memorial.

Fan was the first reporter in China to faithfully report on the Red Army's Long March.

From October 1934 to October 1936, the Red Army soldiers marched through raging rivers, cold mountains and desolate grasslands to break the siege of Kuomintang forces.

In 1935, Fan, 26, spent 10 months interviewing and delivering reports from the Long March to people across China. His reports were published at least one year earlier than the accounts in Red Star Over China by American journalist Edgar Snow.

China established the Fan Changjiang Journalism Award to honor outstanding Chinese journalists in 1991. The award later became the Changjiang Taofen Award, after Fan and another renowned journalist, Zou Taofen (1895-1944).

The Changjiang Taofen Award and the China Journalism Award are the two most prestigious journalism prizes in China.

"In a certain sense Fan is still alive today, and his career is still continuing," wrote Israel Epstein, a Jewish journalist and writer, in 1992, hailing Fan as a legendary forerunner and model for Chinese journalists.

Visitors can see many replicas of Zhang's famous paintings at his memorial, as well as the room at Fan's memorial where he was born.

Visitors who prefer to explore the culinary landscape are sure to find the beef noodles to their liking. Beef noodles are so popular that they are ubiquitous in the city's restaurants.

Ma Bo, Party secretary of the Neijiang municipal committee, said in August 2020: "Residents online say that we Neijiang people are not awakened by the alarm clock in the morning, but by the smell of beef noodles downstairs. I am deeply impressed by this."

Zheng Qianqian contributed to the story.

Contact the writers at huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

Travel tips

It takes between 45 and 64 minutes to reach Longchang from Chengdu via a bullet train and between 35 and 53 minutes, on the same mode of transport, to reach Neijiang from Chengdu. It takes 11 minutes, on a bullet train, to reach Neijiang from Longchang.