The Life of a Government Official

About an hour's drive west of Shanghai is the city of Suzhou, capital of the Jiangsu province. Suzhou is best known for its beautiful scenery, both natural and not. On our day-trip there, we visited the “Humble Administrator's Garden” (拙政園), often considered the “finest garden in southern China.”

As we walked up to the entrance of the garden, we were quickly accosted by tour guides offering their services for a fee. It is by no means necessary to accept, but we found our guide very knowledgeable, and I recommend hiring one out for maximum fulfillment.

The garden consists of over fifty thousand square meters of rocks, trees, buildings, and artificial lakes. It seemed rather unimpressive when we first walked in, but as our guide told us, it was common practice to arrange the features of a garden such that the bigger attractions are deeper in. That way visitors would be encouraged to explore further.

In the central area of the garden, there was a square-shaped structure jutting out into the lake. They call it the four seasons room unofficially because when you sit inside the room, the view seen from each of the four circular doors represents one of the four seasons. Back in the day, it was an excellent place to spend a lazy afternoon, drinking tea and enjoying the scenery.

Spring freshness and summer sunshine.

As we continued walking along the stone path, our guide explained that there were two hallways built for each of the major paths. The plainer looking hallway was for the servants to use, whereas the better one was for the master of the house, his family members, and honored guests. In the better hallway, the ground was paved with stone shaped to look like “人” (person). The characters were stacked on top of each other to symbolize the person whose status is above all other people.

Soon we reached a side branch of the garden, where there were countless bonzai trees. Some of the bigger ones were estimated to be hundreds of years old.

You wont find this at the local nursery.

We finished the last part of the tour by walking through a few of the buildings, which were slightly less interesting than the garden itself. There was a guest reception room, an entertainment room, a tea drinking room, all of which would have been indistinguishable without our guide. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a day, walking through an incredibly rich person's big backyard.