Inside the Humble Administrator’s Garden, one can be fooled into thinking that heaven had touched down to earth in this precise location. This sprawling garden occupies 5 hectares. There are ample vistas to intoxicate the senses, there are numerous pavillions to offer shade and pleasant views, and there are oversized goldfish meandering about in the miniature lakes. There is literally poetry everywhere in this garden. A poem will be written onto the pillar of a pavillion, and somehow these displays are utterly tasteful and not obtrusive in the least. Perhaps I–being a foreigner–can gloss over these poems with ease due to my illiteracy in Chinese characters. But for native speakers, they must afford an additional source of inspiration in this Eden-esque garden.
I said that this oversized garden was heavenly in character, but then there are the crowds. The Humble Administrator’s Garden is the largest and most spectacular garden in all of Suzhou, so it always draws a crowd. And a substantial crowd at that. The highest concentration of foreigners I’ve encountered since Beijing was in Suzhou, mostly within the walls of this fantastic garden. It is true that people come from all over the world to see this garden. And for me, this only reaffirms the notion that the greenest thumbs on earth are often yellow.
Rory Keane is an American-born teacher and writer who has logged nearly two years in China, and is working on another year-long stint in the Middle Kingdom. He writes about travel, sociopolitical issues, health, entertainment, and culture, among other topics.
