Me & City (Suzhou, China)

The Master of the Nets Garden, which belongs to the World Culture Heritage List by UNESCO,  is one of the four most famous gardens in Suzhou.  MNG is a very typical Suzhou style garden, which is also a representing work of the pocket- sized classical garden in the  southern areas of the lower reaches of the Yangze River.

The garden was first built in Southern Song dynasty, AD 1174, owned by SHI Zhenzhi, a government officer who residing in Suzhou after his retirement.  SHI named it as “The fisherman’s Retreat”, from which his willing to return to pastoral is expressed definitely.

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The garden was re-built in Qing dynasty, around AD1765 and was re-named as the one of today. During the past long time history, MNG was handed over from one owner to another. Until  1950, the offspring of HE Yanong, the latest host  of the garden donated it to the public. After a fully re-construction taken in 1958 by Suzhou Garden Bureau,  the garden opened to public officially.

As I mentioned MNG is a pocket-sized garden, she do illustrate how less than more.  The center of the garden is a pond with pathways and pavilions surrounding. Different buildings, decorated with trees, flowers and rockeries, are perfectly spaced to realize unlimited vision effect in  limited space, scenes beyond scenes.

Enjoy the pictures I took in the Master of the Nets Garden with me or visit the official site of MNG for more info!

The lotus festival is going on through to the end of August at The Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lotus-pond Wetland Park in Xiangcheng District.  At the Lotus-pond Wetland Park, you may also enjoy picking lotus seed while rowing a small boat.

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I love lotus personally very much, which is my favourite flower. The elegant lotus have me feel clear and pure and the smell of them is really fresh. Watching the beautiful  lotus petals waving in the breeze like playing game with the jiggly reflections when a piece of cool summer wind touch over is so enjoyable.

Ok, share the nice pictures of lotus with me:)

Today I want to talk about a classical garden——Yi Garden. Actually most Suzhou classical gardens are in downtown, however speaking of the one in the very center of downtown, Yi is.  Just imagine, outside the white walls, noisy streets with cars, buses, bicycles and walkers buzzing while peaceful, quiet and restful mood inside the garden.

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Compare to the other classical gardens in Suzhou, Yi garden was the latest classical garden which absorbed the different landscape gardening art popular in different period of time  include Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

GU Wenbin , once the host of Yi Garden, started to construct and rebuild it from AD 1874 to AD 1882 after taking over the piece of land from WU Kuan . The whole garden which is seperated into east and west parts by a long covered corridor covers 9 acreags.

Visiting Yi Garden, you can’t miss the 95 pieces of calligraphy inscriptions stone embeded in the corrider wall. The works inscripted on the stones are all great creations from very famous Chinese calligraphiers  WANG Xizhi, HUAI Su and so on.

Yi Garden also provides evening activities such as Kun Qu and Pingtan shows at summer nights. Enjoy a relax and nice evening if you luckily visit Suzhou at that time.

As a Suzhou native, I was asked many times by visitors that what is the most specialty of Suzhou I could not miss to introduce to strangers. I bet absolutely 99% of the natives will have the same answer that is the classical gardens. Then pop the next question “Is there a garden that I must visit since there are quite a lot of gardens in Suzhou town?” Yes! If you have not enough time to visit several gardens one by one , there is one you really can’t miss it—The Humble Administrator Garden.

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Maybe you have no idea what’s the difference between gardens in Suzhou with other places. Different with the royal gardens in Beijing, the classical gardens in Suzhou are private gardens in history. Of course, almost all of them have become tour spots nowadays.

The Humble Administrator’s Garden, covering 5.2 ha., is built as early as the 4th year of the reign of Zhengde under the Ming Dynasty (1509 A..D). It is one of the four most famous gardens in China, enjoying the same reputation with The Summer Palace in Beijing, the Imperial Mountain Summer Resort in Chende and another Suzhou classical garden named The Lingering Garden.

Currently the whole garden is separated into three main parts, the east, middle and the west. And a part of the the housing complex has been converted for the use as the Suzhou Garden Museum.

The garden kept the style of the Ming Dynasty fully and it was inscribed  on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1997.  In 2003 it was listed as the National Tourist Attraction of Grade AAAA. I couldn’t remember how many times I have been to the garden since I was a little child and I personally think the beautiful waterscapes, exquisite buildings and luxuriant vegetation are matched so well, which make the garden has a unlimited scenery in a limited room. Every building, every pavilion has it’s own story to explore. I will add posts one by one later. Let’s first enjoy some pictures I took!

I’m not sure if there’s this kind of planting in other countries but in China Bonsai has a long history which almost let itself possess some kind of culture. It is a kind of man-made nature. The mother wide natural scenery is concentrated in a small pot through specially designing by Bonsai maker. Bonsai is also described as “The silent poem and the three-dimensional painting”

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Bonsai is made of three main elements, that are scenery, pot and stand. Of course, the scenery is the most important one.

There are several different kinds of Bonsai according to the different sceneries. Such as tree-root Bonsai, hill-water Bonsai and so on.
Enjoy some bonsai from the Humble Administrator’s Garden:)

I got the news from my friend that the annual Orchard Exhibition is held in the Garden of Surging Wave (Canglang) Pavilion this year, one of classical gardens in Suzhou. We spent a nice weekend afternoon enjoying the beautiful orchids.

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