Master-of-Nets Garden The Master-of-Nets Garden is the historical monument for national reservation.And it is inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO.The garden was founded in the 1180 in the Southern Song Dynasty.Its founder was Shi Zhengzhi, a high official of the Song Court.The earliest name of the garden was the Ten Thousand Volumes Hall.The residence was also known as Fisherman’s Retreat.In the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1796) of the Qing Dynasty, a bureaucrat named Song Zongyuan bought it and built a garden on the site after he went into retirement.Drawing inspiration from the name of Fisherman’s Retreat, he called the garden Wangshi Yuan which meant Fisherman’s Garden, or the garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets.It most popular name in English is the Master-of-Nets Garden.Such a name could expre the owner’s aloofne from politics and material pursuits.The garden covers an area of 1.35 acre, and is compactly laid out, with halls, corridors and pavilions well positioned.The garden is of typical residential style.It’s very unique in Suzhou.The residential area is in the eastern part of the garden.From south to north are arranged three elegantly decorated halls—the sedan hall, main hall and rear hall, which are symmetrically built along the same axis.
Sedan-Chair Hall Now we have arrived at the gate of the garden.It is one of the very few early homes that can be seen today.You might have noticed that the gate is raised way above the ground, making room for the threshold, which stands about three feet high.You may wonder why the threshold was made so high.Well, in the old times, the height of the threshold indicated the social standing of the family.There is a side door next to the main gate, used by servants and common people.The main gate was opened only for the senior members of the family and their distinguished guests, who would come and go in sedan-chairs.When the gate opened, the threshold would be removed to let the sedan-chair pa through.This hall is where the sedan-chair would be parked, so it has the name of Sedan-Chair Hall.The two small rooms flanking the entrance were provided for the doorkeepers and sedan-chair carriers.And the carriers might also sit on the two long benches by the windows.One of the typical features of Suzhou’s traditional houses is building of small courtyards, like the two we see here.Their practical function is to let in light and air as well as to drain rain water away.Hung above is a wooden tablet with four characters, which mean “to be an upright and capable person (or official) earlier.” Shown below is a lacquer-carving painting which gives visitors a panoramic view of the whole garden.We are coming from the south now and moving north.Standing behind the screen, you may see some carved stone niches over the doorway, which were originally reserved for the ancestral tablets of the family.The niches are relics of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Brick-Carved Gateway
The most elaborate brick carving of the gateway is really worth studying.It dates back to the Qianlong’s reign of the Qing Dynasty, some 250 years ago, but it is still kept in excellent repair.The peony flowers and bats carved in relief are symbols of wealth and good luck.There also three-dimensional carvings of figures from theatrical stories.The figurines on the east side tell story of King Wen requesting Jiang Ziya to be his military advisor.The story took place some 3100 years ago.The inscription over the doorway says something like Soaring upon Literary Talent.The figurines on the west side show how General Guo Ziyi celebrated his birthday.The story was set in the Tang Dynasty.Bricks are also used to face the door panels as a precaution against fire, so the gate is called the Wind-Fire Gate.
Grand Reception Hall Here is the main reception hall of the residence, known as Ten Thousand Volumes’ Hall.Everything inside is very formally and symmetrically displayed, such as furniture and the wall hangings.The owner used to greet his guests at the gateway and lead them into this hall.Also held in this hall were important ceremonies for birthday, wedding day and so on.The chairs and tables her are typical Ming Dynasty furniture of the 16th century.You can tell that from their simple and clear cut lines without marble inlay.Shown in the middle of the hall is a bronze drum, which was popular in the Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces southwest China.Bronze drums have a long history of some 2700 years.They were used as musical instruments for memorial ceremonies or battles.Local villagers beat bronze drums for festivals, marriage celebrations, feasts, bull-fighting, etc.The garden displays such a bronze drum to enrich the cultural background in such a claical garden.
Chamber with Best Views Here is the reception hall for the ladies of the family.It’s built on a somewhat smaller scale, but it’s a more private chamber than the male quarters.The upper rooms, formerly used by the women as bedrooms, command good views of suburban hill and scenes inside the city wall.In the front courtyard grow two osmanthus trees creating a poetic atmosphere.Other rooms to the east of the hall and to the west of the hall are concealed from public views, behind the walls.A private entry to the other side, the northeast side, gives easy acce to the backyard of the house.Or we may pa through another entry on the northwest side to enter the garden proper.
Hall of Ascending Cloud We come into a garden court with a three-bay house.It is named the Hall of Ascending Cloud.Trees and rockeries are well arranged with a moon gate on the east side, which leads to a two-storied building.Suzhou dialect storytelling and ballad-singing are performed here in the evening when the night garden is open to the public from March to November.
Five Peaks Library It is a two-storey claical building, which was originally the library of the owner of the garden.Books used to be stored upstairs, and down here the five-bay room was used as a winter retreat in addition to being a reading room.Through the gla windows we may look out into this courtyard featuring both evergreen trees and deciduous trees with rockeries and white walls as the background.How to go upstairs? A wooden stairway can lead you to go upstairs in another building known as the Hall of Mind Concentration,
Hall of Mind Concentration This place used to be one of the reading-rooms of the garden’s owner.From here the central space of the garden is already visible.Upstairs was the bedroom for grown-up daughters of the family.So the whole building is popularly known as Young Lady’s Building.No gentleman was permitted to enter.In front of the hall is a courtyard, very small but very poetic, with two bamboo groves growing quite well.Walking southward through the courtyard and a moon gate, we can get to the Bamboo Flanked Verandah.
Bamboo Flanked Verandah This open-sided verandah resembles the cabin of a boat when it is viewed from the south and southwest.We can have a panorama of scenes over the pond.To the left we may see a yellow rock which rises over the water’s edge like a cliff.The wisteria vines coil about the rockery, and the water seems to flow by the rockery and run freely under a stone bridge towards unknown sources.Situated south beyond the pond is another rock-piled hill, which is named Mount Yungang.It is piled up with yellow stones.If we follow the walkway by the wisteria and circle around the pond, we’ll get to two nice pavilions, one is the water-side studio for washing hat-taels; the other is a pavilion for viewing the rising moon.Hall of Viewing Pines and Paintings Leaving the Bamboo Flanked Verandah and strolling northwest, we may arrive at the Hall of Viewing Pine and Paintings, which is a major building in the garden proper, formally used as a painting studio.Because it is designed on a pretty large scale, the hall is set back from the water so as not to dominate the pond.Between this hall and the pond, a garden court is arranged, where a few ancient trees and some flowers grow.The cypre is nearly 900 years old, which is an evidence to the long history of the garden.Another old tree is called the white-bark pine, over there, with a slanting trunk.The podocarpus is a replanted one.The trees play an effective role in deepening the yonder spaces.The furniture in this hall dates from the Qing Dynasty, but it remains much of the Ming style, especially the chairs.Their simple clear-cut lines are characteristic of Ming Dynasty furniture.Besides, three stones are displayed in the hall as ornaments.They are fitted on carved mahogany stands.The two stones on either side are petrified wood, or known as foil tree.The one in the middle is a Ling Bi stone.If one strikes it, it gives forth a metallic sound.Ancient scholars were noted for their love of rocks.Behind these half-length fret windows there are two nice courtyards, in which some Taihu rocks and plants are arranged to offer framed pictures.A distinctive feature of the hall is that the walls are faced with grey bricks which give a nostalgic atmosphere.Pavilion of Arriving Moon and Wind The pavilion is built as something of a summer house to enjoy cool breeze and watch the moon.At the Mid-Autumn Festival one can have three moons in view: one in the sky, one in the water, and another one reflected in the mirror here.Acro the pond is a high white wall, which is the flank of living quarters.In order to enliven the wall and break its stiff and monotonous patterns, three measures are taken.First of all, the designer uses both a climbing ivy and a few false lattice windows to decorate the wall.Secondly some tiles and eave tiles are used to form a horizontal line so as to cut down its height, which is a visional illusion.Thirdly, a rockery is piled up to cover up a good portion of the wall.So the white wall no longer appears overwhelming in our views.The pavilion is jutting into the water.Thus visitors are brought to a good viewing position no matter which angle they face.The covered walk way, paved with cracked stones, goes up and down to make us feel as if we did arrive in a real mountainous area.Studio for Washing Hat-Taels The expreion “Washing Hat-Taels” is from the lyrics of fishermen’s songs in Chuci: The Fisherman.It goes, “When the gentle waves water is clear, I’ll wash my hat-taels.When the gentle waves water is dirty, I’ll wash my feet.”
Staying here, people can see the house in the opposite bank of the pond.These buildings are different in heights and architectural features.The farther back they are, the higher they stand.Some stand of the water.The Hall of Viewing Pines and Paintings is set back behind trees, and the Five Peaks Hall and the Young Lady’s Building hide themselves behind lower verandahs.Their white walls and dark roofs are clearly reflected in the pond with a few water-lilies on its surface.Thus the scenery around the pond seems to give us a sense of a big world from a limited space.The water surface of the pond looks wider.It is really the Nature in nutshell.
Late Spring Cottage Here we come to a quiet inner courtyard.In the old time the courtyard was noted for the beautiful peony in its flower bed, so the building got the name Late Spring Cottage, denoting the blooming season of the peony.The cottage, or the hall, used to serve as the owner’s study, where he also received his intimate friends.In the 1930’s the renowned landscape painter Zhang Daqian lived here.His No.2 elder brother, Zhang Shanzi raised a baby tiger in it, from which his brother drew artistic inspirations while drawing pictures with tigers as the main theme.Erected at the corner in the western-most wall is a stone tablet with characters written by Zhang Daqian to mark the event.What he wrote means “the tomb of the baby tiger raised by the late No.two elder brother.”
Cold Spring Pavilion In front of the Late Spring Cottage is a nice garden, or garden court, where we can see different kinds of trees, rockeries and claical building such as a corridor and a pavilion.Erected at the side of a tiny pool is the half-pavilion to house a large Ling Bi rock, which is said to have been in the poeion of Tang Ying, the great painter of the Ming Dynasty.The pavilion, named Cold Spring, calls many visitors’ attention to rockery cave, where a natural spring is sheltered under rocks.The spring, in the form of a tiny pool, was discovered during the garden’s repair in 1958.so the spring adds an important element to this otherwise dry garden court.Please look at the floor mosaic.It is paved with small pieces of stones, which are harmonized in colour with the Taihu rocks piled-up in the court.
Astor Court or Ming Room The reputation of this garden court has increased internationally since 1980.In May 1980 a similar court was constructed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City to dis play and exhibit the oriental cultural relics such as porcelain, Chinese paintings and bronze ware.The court in the museum was designed as a Ming-dynasty-style garden court， named Astor Court or Ming Room.This is because Mrs.Astor donated 1.5 million USD to build the very garden court.And the Late Spring Cottage garden court in Suzhou was used as its model.The project was undertaken by Suzhou Garden Administration.A full-size prototype was erected in the East Park of Suzhou in May 1979.the prototype still remains in Suzhou; its replica is being exhibited in New York.It was the first time for New China to export an entire claical garden for a foreign country.Its quality was excellent.So it was a great succe in the cultural exchange between China and the USA.The fame of the Master-of –Nets Garden spread all over the world, attracting countle visitors.
Hall Amidst Hills and Osmanthus Groves This hall is located south of Mount Yungang, or the Cloud Mound, and faces a stretch of rockeries with osmanthus trees growing on them.There are maples and magnolias over this mound piled up with yellow rocks, forming very good scenery and attracting many photographers.
Little Stone Arched Bridge Over there is a delicate little stone bridge, which is the smallest yet the oldest in Suzhou Garden.It’s a relic from the Song Dynasty (960-1279).This granite stone bridge is 2.45 meters long and 0.93 metre wide.Viewed from the opposite bank of the pond, this single-arch bridge looks even smaller.So it really makes the water in the pond appear more voluminous an extensive.On either side of the bridge are four steps with handrails.Under the bridge flows a brooklet with rockeries at its both sides, which seems to be a miniature of the Three Gorges.There is a sluice gate at a distance of several feet south of the bridge, where on a rock are carved two characters meaning “Wait for Tide.”
Lute Room Walking westward from the bridge along the corridor and then turning south, we come to the House of Tranquility and Harmony.A small door south of the hall opens on a quiet courtyard, where a pavilion serves as a place for music.Two Chinese characters Lute Room are inscribed on a horizontal tablet.
Duck-Shooting Corridor If we walk northward from the bridge, we’ll get to the Square Pavilion and the Duck-Shooting Corridor.The Square Pavilion is opposite to the Pavilion of Arriving Moon and Wind, and links the Chamber with Best Views.In China’s Tang Dynasty （618-907）， people liked ducks very much.They either made ducks fighting or shot ducks to make amusement.Nowadays such kind of amusement is nowhere to be found.The corridor is only about ten feet long.But there are two delicate brick carvings inlaid in its nearby wall, showing very detailed landscapes.The carving was done in the Song Dynasty.
