According to Liu Xiaoli, a guide in the museum, Du was born into the family of an official, led a well-to-do life as a young man, but found himself in financial straits after his father passed away.

As an ambitious young man, in 736 he wrote the poem Looking at Taishan, when, as a 24-year-old, he lived an uninhibited, wandering life in what are present-day Henan, Hebei and Shandong provinces after failing the imperial examination the previous year. The poem reads:

One day I shall climb to the summit,

Seeing how small all peaks appear as they lie below me.

In order to become an official and realize his political ambition, Du spent nearly 10 years in Chang'an, only to reach the level of a petty bureaucrat. Having witnessed the sharp contrast between the haves and have-nots, the poor poet found that his youngest son had died of starvation when he visited his family in 755. He was so emotionally overwhelmed that he wrote the long poem Going from the Capital to Fengxian, which contains the time-honored lines:

There comes the reek of wines and meats that rot inside the gates of these rich;

The poor die frozen on the street.

The 20-hectare Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum is built around the location in Chengdu where Du built his family cottage in 760 with the help of his friend, the official Yan Wu.