SUZHOU, THE GARDEN CITY

Our first stop after Shanghai was the ancient garden city, Suzhou. It’s located in the lower Yangtze delta about one hour north of Shanghai. It boasts a very large number of private gardens, up to 280 of them. They have the most wonderful names, including the Humble Administrators Garden, the Lingering Garden, the Swallow Garden, the Five Peaks Garden, the Listening to Maple Garden and dozens of other gorgeous titles. The Chinese have a saying – “Up in Heaven there’s paradise. Down on Earth there’s Suzhou and Hangzhou.” They are considered the two most beautiful garden cities of China. Many Chinese feel life is not lived if one hasn’t visited either of these cities. Often they will travel vast distances with their deceased relatives to have them buried in one of these two cities, so that the deceased can enjoy good and peaceful times in the afterlife. This is how highly the garden towns are rated.

Suzhou goes back to at least 560BC. It received its name in the Shui Dynasty of around 580 to 618AD. It was always a city of the arts and crafts, it was also the home of rice growing and fish, being a full canal city until recently. It’s also a city of literature, the arts and the home of brocades. The oldest gardens date back to 770BC, the Zhou Dynasty. Others came much later in the Song Dynasty (420AD).

The principles involved in the building of Chinese gardens revolve around the right understanding of Yin and Yang, the rising and falling of energies and the flow of Chi (Qi). They involve philosophy, religion, aesthetics, art, architecture and life sciences. Creating a garden means making use of the natural and social elements of the local environment. They must be very people centred.

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