China Spring 2018: Suzhou 1 - the Humble Administrator's Garden

entrance gate

     The city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, China is a good destination for a short getaway from our home in Japan—a two hour flight to Shanghai, Pudong Airport and a 2-hour bus to Suzhou.

magnolia tree in full bloom just inside the entance

    Suzhou has some of the best Chinese landscape gardens in China, one of which, the most famous, is a World Heritage Site called the Humble Administrator's Garden built during the Ming Dynasty in the 16^th Century. The garden has a special rate for senior citizens, as did other public gardens in the area. For those between 60 and 69 there is a 50% discount. For those over 70, like me, admission is free.

early Spring - Crocuses in full bloom

Plum and Crocus

       There is a story about the garden's unusual name. It was built by a government bureaucrat named Wang Xianchen. Wang was dissatisfied with his career due to the influence of some of the court eunuchs on the Emperor. The reality was, of course, more complicated than castrated court favorites. He got caught up, as any bureaucrat might, in political power struggles and court intrigues and thought himself an unsuccessful politician.

watch your step

Red, the most popular color in China

       Looking for a more rewarding life he had the garden built for his retirement so he could lead a simple life doing gardening work and cultivating vegetables, etc. He thought of it as a simple life led by a humble man, himself, and called the garden the Humble Administrator's Garden. The inspiration for the garden's name comes from a prose story entitled An Idle Life by a scholar official of the Jin Dynasty (3^rd and 4^th Centuries AD) named Pan Yue: "I enjoy a carefree life by planting trees and building my own house...I irrigate my garden and grow vegetables for me to eat...such a life suits a retired official like me well". But, the garden, as my pictures might show, is anything but “humble”.

water is one of the most important elements in the design of the garden

they do it with mirrors

teahouse

stained glass 

not a snake, protection for the vine trunk

moon gate, one of many

thousands of tiles go into making the roofs

lovely reflections in the pond
lend an air of calm and serenity

no idea what they are picking, but I'd bet that it is edible

trellis is made entirely of bamboo

pavilion on a rocky slope

object is made from one slab of stone

 the long walkway is intentionally vertically zigzagged
for the variety of visual experience