Sun Yat Sen Garden

Dr.Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese garden is the first Chinese Garden ever built outside of China. The garden construction began in January 1985 and had its opening ceremony in April 1986. Sun Yat Sen garden is a typical example of the fomous scholar's gardens in Su Zhou.
Marco Polo once stated Su Zhou as Venice of the East.

I learned many new and interesting things from this garden. There are mainly 8 sections in this garden; entrance, courtyard, main hall, corridor, ting, water pavilion, study and look out. The garden was built from many kinds of woods. One of them was called Nan wood which is a traditional wood used in China for over 2000 years, but it is now one of the endangered wood. The Chinese government were kind enough to offer this wood to this garden as a gift. Water pavilion is the coolest place in the garden since it spans the water like a bridge. Thre are also ponds which are intentionally cloudy to intensify the reflections. It is cloudy because of the clay that lines the bottom of the man-made pond. The pond is the clour of the jade, since jade is the favorite gemstone in China and symbolizes wealth and puity. Like the reason choosing jade for the color of the pond, in the garden, all natural elements and architecure are careully chosen for their simbolic meanings, historical and literary.

I was deeply inspired of the beauty of traditional architecture of China by this garden. Before, I was not aware of the beauty of traditional architecture and thought modern architectures were more superior than the traditional ones, since modern ones are large and has high electronic technique. However, from this Chinese garden I have learnt the beauty of the landsape which is presented in miniature, and understood why less is more. The garden is very different from nowdays’ garden. The building is built around the garden rather than building the garden around the homes like today’s. I think living in these gardens would never make me feel fed up of the views since it is all decorated with natural resources and natural resources like trees and grass never look the same everyday, it changes seasons to seasons. From this experience, I think while we progress we should also precious our traditional things at the same time.