Suzhou Expat - The expatriate portal in China

The scenic city of Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province has imposed a quarrying ban to maintain its image as an idyllic place.

Granite stones quarried in Suzhou are so well-known throughout the country for their fine quality that they were used to build the Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong and the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tian'anmen Square.

It is estimated that four million tons of stone are quarried each year bringing over seven million yuan of profit, enough to make the local towns prosperous.

However, local authorities found that the loud noises and dust from the quarries do not suit Suzhou's image as a paradise on earth.

To compensate local workers for their losses, the government has allocated 365 million yuan to help them develop agriculture, such as planting of flowers and fruit trees, and freshwater aquiculture.

The Humble Administrator's Garden

The Humble Administrator's Garden. First laid out in 1509 AD, the garden's scenery is focused on a central pond with various buildings of pavilions,terraces,chambers and towers located by the water or on hillocks in a natural, unsophisticated,and appropriate composition. The garden is most representative of Chinese classical gardens in the Ming Dynasty.

The Humble Administrator's Garden covers 4 hectares in northeast Suzhou. It is the largest garden of the city and a typical example of the art of horticulture south of the Changjiang river.

It was laid out in 1513 by the censor Wang Xiancheng after his retirement from political life. He named the garden after an essay by Pan Yue of Jing Era---On Idle Living:" Building house and planting trees, watering garden and growing vegetables are the affairs (Zheng) of humble (Zhuo) people." After his death, his son gambled away the garden.

When Taiping troops occupied Suzhou in 1860, King Zhongwang picked this one and the neighboring buildings of the present Historical Museum as a residence and center for his political activities.

Three-fifths of its area is covered by magnificent ponds. All of the buildings are right next to the ponds, so that the garden seems to be floating on the water. The entire grounds can be divided into three parts: an eastern, a central and a western part. The central one is especially worth a visit. It centers around Yuanxiang Tang pavilion. Two artificial islands linked to each other in the lotus pond north of the pavilion are densely overgrown with bamboo plants and trees. In the western part, Sanshiliu Yuanyang Guan hall, the Hall of the Thirty-Six Mandarin Ducks, will attract the visitors' special interest. On the adjoining lake, one used to be able to see mandarin ducks, symbol of marital faithfulness. Today, some swim in a fenced-off part of the lake.West of the garden there is a noteworthy bonsai exhibition a a teahouse.

Shizilin (Lion Grove Garden)

Built in 1342 during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) by Monk Tianru and a group of Buddhists of the Zen Sect, in the memory of High Monk Zhongfeng, Lion Grove Garden has been changed hands and renamed several times. It was first given the name of Lion Grove, as the grotesque rocks of its man-made hill resembled lions. Later, in 1342, its name was changed to Puti Temple. Lion Grove Garden was a popular center for Buddhist, as well as literary activities. Many scholars created their paintings or lines after being inspired by the garden.

After Monk Tianru's death, his disciples were dismissed. Lion Grove Garden was abandoned and became dilapidated. In 1589 of the Ming Dynasty, Monk Mingxing rebuilt the garden and temple with donations he had collected. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the two parts were separated. Huang Xingzu, the governor of Hengzhou, bought the garden and renamed it She Garden. His son, Huang Xi gave it a new name -- Five-Pine Garden in 1771, after a major renovation was carried out. The garden was again left in ruins due to the Huang family’s bankruptcy, until it was purchased by the Bei family in 1917. After the founding of the People’s Republic, the garden was donated to the government. From then on, it has been under good protection.

Covering an area of about 1.1 hectares, Lion Grove  Garden is an ideal site for sightseeing as it has richly ornamental pavilions and towers in different styles, each having its own history and story. Zhenquting (True Delight Pavilion) is the most magnificent in Lion Grove Garden. Built in royal architectural style, it has a horizontal board inscribed by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, who visited the gardens six times. Lixuetang (Standing-in-Snow Hall) was named according to a Buddhist story which tells how a devoted Zen adherent stood in snow for a whole night to worship his master monk. Wenmeige (Pavilion for Greeting the Plum Blossoms) was a place where painters and poets gathered. In addition to the plum trees around the pavilion, all the furniture and utensils inside are all decorated or carved with designs of beautiful plum blossoms. Furthermore, many rare tablets and steles, paintings and calligraphy works are kept in Lion Grove Garden. Among them are precious Ming-dynasty artworks such as "Panoramic View by Ni Yunlin and the "Twelve Scenic Spots in Lion Grove Garden" by Xu Ben.

A representative garden of the Yuan Dynasty, the most noted attraction of the Lion Grove Garden is the labyrinthine rockery made of limestone from the Taihu Lake. Rocks in this "Kingdom of Rockery" are piled up skillfully and ingeniously, and most of them look like lions in different postures and verves: playing, roaring, fighting, sleeping, or even dancing. It is said that in the past, looking north from Xiaofangting (Small Square Hall), one could see nine stone lions standing in a row and that is the Nine-Lion Peak. Due to the changes and ravages of the time and the erosion of elements, the peak now only bears little resemblance to lions.

Surging Wave Pavilion

The garden was originally the private property of a prince of the Five Dynasties (907-960). During the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), Su Zimei, a scholar, built his mansion here and named it Canglang Pavilion. The garden has been rebuilt many times but most of the present garden buildings, simple and plain, are from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Covering an area of 10,656 square meters (1.1 hectares), the garden features well-arranged man-made hills and waters. On the stream winding through the garden, elegant stone bridges are built. On the hills, there are age-old trees and bamboo groves.

Canglanging, a square pavilion, stands at the top of a hill. Couplets carved on its stone pillars read: "The refreshing breeze and the bright moon are priceless; The nearby water and the distant mountains strike a sentimental note." A corridor built by the canal lies in the north of the garden, linking the scenes inside the garden with that outside it.

Mingdao (Enlightened Way) Hall, located at the foot of the hills, is the major building of the garden. It was a hall for lectures during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Surrounded by verdant trees, it looks significant, though the structure is of simple architectural style.

In addition to hills and waters, the garden is also famous for buildings with unique latticed windows. With different impressive designs, these windows have extremely high artistic value.

Garden of Harmony

The Garden of Harmony otherwise called Yuyuan in Chinese is a newer private garden, which was built in the Qing Dynasty by Gu Wenbin, an official in the Qing Dynasty. The garden borrowed all the stylistic elements of other gardens in the area, caves in the Lion Grove, a stone boat resembling that in the Humble Administrator Garden, corridor like that at Cangliang Pavilion, and so on. The garden is divided into two parts, the eastern and western parts. The eastern part mainly consists of residential buildings, courtyards, while the western part take the middle part of the Humble Administrator's Garden as a model, composed of ponds, flowers, rockeries and oddly shaped rocks.

Wangshi Garden (The Master-of-the-Nets)

Suzhou Wangshi Garden is situated on the southeast of Yukuojia Tou Lane in Suzhou ancient city. It was reputed as the famous “little garden acme” of Suzhou botanical garden.

It is one of the rare and unique botanical garden of its type remained. Wangshi Garden’s history can be traced back to as far as 800 years ago. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, Shao Qingzong of Guanglu Temple built another house for his mother and the original first name of the place was Wangshi Garden.

There are 12 sceneries in the garden. The middle section of the garden scenery area highlights the water. Wangshi Garden signifies “the old fisherman fishing in the garden”.

The garden scenery arrangement and the scenic spot autograph contain rich hidden leisure breath. The entire garden area is only slightly more than 8 Chinese acres.

It achieved the feeling of spacious and not cramped even though the area is small. The theme subject is prominent and the layout is compact, utilizing the proportion and contrast technique to obtain good artistic effect. It is the representative work of medium size classic botanical garden in Suzhou.

Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill, known also as Surging Sea Hill, is a large hillock, standing 36 meters high and covering an area of some 14,100 square meters. Going up to the hill, you will find a number of historical sites, including some from 2,500 years ago, which are as old as the city of Suzhou.

The Tomb of King He Lu: In 496 BC, during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), He Lu, King of the Wu State died in battles against Yue, the neighbor state. His son buried him in the hill and three days after the funeral, a white tiger came and sat upon the grave, seeming to be a guard. From then on, the place has been known as Tiger Hill.

Tiger Hill Pagoda: The pagoda standing on the hill's summit is part of the Yunyan Temple. The oldest pagoda in Suzhou, it serves as a landmark of the city. Built during the Northern Song Dynasty (959-961), the 48-meter-high seven-story octahedron has leant towards the northwest in the past 400 years.

Sword Testing Stone and Sword Pool: King He Lu was a zealous collector of rare swords and it is said that he tested them upon this stone, leaving the crevice on the rock. As for his swords, it is believed that they were buried beneath the Sword Pool as funerary objects. Another mystery is the whereabouts of the remains of the 1,000 tomb builders who were killed upon the completion of the project.

Lu Yu Well: Lu Yu was a master of tea art who wrote the first book on this subject, The Treatise of Tea. Lu lived on Tiger Hill when he wrote the final part of his book. He excavated the well and declared that the water from it was the third best in China. Owing to Lu's research and teaching, tea growing and consuming has become an important part of the Suzhou people.

Yongcui Shanzhuang (Verdant Mountain Villa): Built in the 10th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the villa is a masterpiece of classic Suzhou garden. The architect's smart design made the villa a natural vista for views of the surrounding landscapes. From any hall or porch, one can get a pleasant sight.

Wanjing Villa: The ancient art of bonsai growing is exhibited in this villa with thousands of mini plants on display. Many of them are award winners of prestigious bonsai competitions. The miniature replicas of full-size gardens always give visitors surprising pleasure.

Hanshan Temple

The Hanshan Temple was originally built during the reign of Tianjian in the Liang Dynasty. The poem of “ Mooring to the Maple Bridge at Night ” by Zhang Ji of the Tang Dynasty is so oft-quoted and widely loved that the poetic rhyme and the bell-tolling sounds have made the Hanshan Temple famous at home and abroad. The characteristic tourist program of listening to the bell tolls of the Hanshan Temple on the New Year's Eve has been an exceptionally grand occasion since its beginning in 1979. On every New Year's Eve, thousands of visitors at home and abroad gather inside and outside the temple to listen to the one hundred and eight bell tolls and pray for luck and happiness in the new year. The Maple Bridge and the Jiangchun Bridge stretch over the ancient canal and are simple and elegant in shape. Looking into the distance on the bridges, the sights of hills, waters and fields outside the city of Suzhou leaping up into the eyes and are unfolding in all their majesty.

Facing water at two sides and lying side by side with the Maple Bridge , the Tieling Pass is the only relic extant of the military and civilian people of Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty resisting the aggressors. Sitting at the communication center of water and land in the southwest of Suzhou , the Tieling Pass looks rather strategically located, which is typical of passes in the land of waters south of the Yangtse River . The old Maple Bridge Town was a flourishing market place in the prosperous times of the Tang Dynasty. With simple and elegant buildings, with streets in front and rivers behind, with high and low houses, with prosperous commerce, and with distinctive style, the town is an old one in the land of waters south of the Yangtse River with tourism, enjoyment and shopping integrated as one. In the Alternative Hanshan Yard, the oriental cherries are in full bloom and the osmanthus is sweet-scented. Though there are no towering old trees, the green trees shade the yard. The Poem-hunting Corridor, the Floating Star Pavilion, the rope-fastening rock, the old temple with yellow walls and lingering bell tolls are all the resorts to recall the past and find out the secret. The huge 22 meters long three-dimensional model of “The Famous Historical Relics of the Maple Bridge” in the Exhibition Hall of Historical Relics and Materials of the Maple Bridge” is a comprehensive expression of traditional arts and crafts of Suzhou and artistically reproduce the prosperous sights and simple folk customs outside the Changmen Gate of Suzhou at the end of the Ming Dynasty and at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.

With the historical and cultural style and features of “ Five Ancients ” , the Hanshan Temple Scenic Spot is such a tourist resort where visitors at home and abroad will be carried away.

The Mysterious Taoist Temple (Xuanmiao Taoist Temple)

The building of the Mysterious Taoist Temple began in the second year of the reign of Hanning in the West Jin Dynasty and is the monastery resort of the Taoist faction of Zhengyi. It was originally called the Zhengqing Taoist Monastery and was renamed the Mysterious Taoist Temple in the Yuan Dynasty. In order to avoiding using the King's name during the reign of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the name was changed into the Xuanmiao Taoist Temple . In the early era of the Republic of China, the name of the Mysterious Taoist Temple was reused.

The most magnificent building of the Mysterious Taoist Temple is the Hall of Three Qings as the main hall which is spacious, towering and solemn. It is a wooden hall building of the Southern Song Dynasty with the largest scale in the south of the Yangtse River and holds a very important position in the history of building in China. In front of the temple is a broad heterogeneously built open-air terrace of green stones. The terrace is surrounded by finely engraved railings of green stones in the eastern, southern and western sides, with a stepping battlement in each side. The relief sculptures of birds, beasts, figures and stories on the arch plate are after the customs handed down from the stone relieves of the Han Dynasties and are extremely exquisite, which are the relics from the Five Dynasties and the Southern Song Dynasty. On the sunk panel of the temple's ceiling are all magnificent paintings of cranes, deer, clouds, and the instruments used by the Eight Immortals in the Taoist legend. The pedestal for the Statue of Xumi at the center of the hall is elaborately wrought.

Consecrated on the pedestal are the three statues of the ancestors of the Taoist faction of Three Seniors, Taiqing, Yuqing and Shangqing. Each of the statues of these three Qings is more than 15 meters high and is with brilliant golden lights, dignified postures, radiating vigor and natural and quality clothes, which makes them the excellent works in the Taoist sculptures of the Song Dynasty. There is also a stone portrait of Confucius carved after the painting drawn by Wu Daozi in the first year of the reign of Baoqing in the Southern Song Dynasty.

The North Temple Pagoda

Covering about 0.0667 hectares, the North Temple Pagoda was originally the Tongxuan Temple during the reign of Chiwu of the Eastern Wu in the Three States built by Sun Quan, the Emperor of Wu, for his wet nurse. It was granted as the “Epoch-making Temple” in the Tang Dynasty and began to be called the “ Reciprocation Temple ” at the end of the Five Dynasties. So far it has a history of more than 1,700 years.

The Reciprocation Temple Pagoda, or the North Temple Pagoda, is a provincial preservation unit of historical and cultural relics and is popularly praised as the “ Number One Pagoda in South of the Yangtse River ” . Standing far apart facing the Tiger Hill Pagoda, the North Temple Pagoda is also a famous old pagoda and an important symbol of Suzhou .

The North Temple Pagoda has a long history. It was originally an eleven-storeyed pagoda built by Zhanghui, a monk in the Liang Dynasty. Then it was destroyed by the flames of war and the base of the North Temple Pagoda today was built by Dayuan, a monk in the Southern Song Dynasty.

The North Temple Pagoda is a brick and wooden Buddhist pagoda of the style of building and has nine storeys with eight sides each. With the height of 76 meters, it is the highest of the pagodas in Suzhou . It is famous for double eaves and flying corners and is a building in the same type as the Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou . The base of the pagoda covers 1.3 mu (= 0.0667 hectares), whose eaves are extraordinarily long. Its body consists of the outer corridors, the inner corridors and the square rooms in the center. Visitors can walk up along the wooden stairs in the internal corridors and by leaning on the railings look down at the panorama of the city as well as look at hills, waters, and rural scenery of Suzhou in the distance.

Kaiyuan Temple

The Temple was founded first in the second Xianning year of the Western Jin dynasty (276) and was named "Zhenqing Temple" at that time. The name was then changed into "Kaiyuan Temple" in the Tang dynasty and "Tianqing Temple" in the Song dynasty. It was not until the Yuan dynasty that the temple was named "mysterious sublimity", two characters taken from "they are both so mysterious as to be a key to the door of myriad sublimity", a sentence in Book of Laozi.

From the Tang to the Qing dynasties, the temple was expanded many times and became the largest Daoist temple in terms of area south of the River. During the reign of Emperor Chengzong of the Yuan dynasty, it was acknowledged as one of the eight greatest temples of the country by imperial order. Whenever Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty went on an inspection tour south of the River, he always stayed at the temple as his temporary dwelling place. From this we can see how reputable the Mysterious Sublimity Temple was.

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