Sunday, 1 November 2009

I think we've pretty much figured out classical Chinese gardens.

I'm generalizing from our viewing of the Yu Yuan Garden here in Shanghai last week, and the tour we made of three more classical chinese gardens in Suzhou yesterday, which may be too small a sample, but I would conclude that there are these four necessary elements:

• water
• rocks
• plants
• buildings

The water element may take the form of ponds, pools, streams, even small waterfalls. Often the surface reflection of a still pond is an essential element of a particular garden scene. Many of the rocks used are from Taihu or Tai Lake near Suzhou. Such rocks were extremely costly at the time of the construction of the classical gardens and they are supposed to symbolize wisdom and immortality. The plants are used so that the garden's aspect will vary with the seasons. All of these gardens are scholar's gardens. So, there are always buildings set amongst the natural garden elements which were in fact used by the particular scholar who built the garden as he engaged in his artistic and contemplative pursuits. The overall composition of any particular garden integrates all of these elements as they contributed to the work of the scholar.

The gardens we saw in Suzhou yesterday were:

• The Humble Administrator's Garden
• The Lion Forest Garden
• The Master-of-Nets Garden

The Humble Administrator's Garden is supposed to be an AAAAA site, but we found it just a tad too large for "humility" and far too crowded for comfortable touring. Clearly, the "humble" administrator was in fact a person of very elevated rank. The other two gardens, both only AAAA sites, but more appreciated by us, were easier to see because they were both smaller and less crowded. The Lion Forest Garden has a truly astonishing collection of "lion rocks" from Tai Lake. While it helps to know that the lions are rocks when you see that garden, I don't think you have to know that it is fishing nets whose mastery is in question in the Master-of-nets Garden.

In addition to these gardens, we also saw the Suzhou Museum — a small but nicely-displayed collection of classical Chinese art, housed in a building designed by I. M. Pei (who was born in Canton to a prominent family from Suzhou), as well as the Tiger Hill complex with its "leaning" Pagoda.

Pictures from all of this are here. Here's a couple I especially liked. They are little architectural ornaments from Tiger Hill.

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As I write these blog posts, I often recall, somewhat at random, that I've been meaning to write about some aspect of Shanghai life for some time, but somehow never have done so yet. Today is no exception, and the topic of today's random observation is firecrackers.

Every so often, and far oftener than I would have expected, a really big and really loud noise will suddenly break out in whatever particular Shanghai neighborhood I happen to be in, a noise that sounds like a really big explosion. It usually goes on, intermittently, for a few minutes. The first time this happened, I happened to be up on the 31st floor in our apartment, and I simply had no earthly idea what could be going on. Was a building being demolished nearby? Had terrorists struck? Frantic, I looked out our windows for signs of fallout from the implosion of a building, or smoke from a bomb site — nothing. When peace reigned again, it was entirely as though nothing had happened. I finally figured out (maybe somebody told me) it was Chinese fireworks (we'd call them firecrackers). A big family occasion like a wedding will typically call for a heap of these as part of the celebration. When it happens (as it just did a few moments ago as I was composing the first part of this post) I now know it is meant as a joyful noise. I still find it unsettling though.

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Tonight we're going to a concert at the Shanghai Conservatory's He Luting Concert Hall. It's the gala closing performance of the Conservatory's Fifth International Youth Piano Competition, and the top prize winners are supposed to be performing. Should be exciting!