拙政园英文介绍

The Humble Administrator's Garden is the largest and most famous classic garden in Suzhou. Its exquisite beauty, artistic value and historic significant established the garden, as one of China's four most famous gardens, other three being the Summer Palace in Beijing, the Mountain Resort of Chengde in Hebei Province and the Lingering Garden in Suzhou. It also listed as a World Cultural Heritage site by United Nations Educational，Scientific，and Cultural Organization in 1997. Covering an area of 52,000 square meters, the Humble Administrator's Garden was began to built in 1509 AD during the Ming Dynasty and was finished after 16 years of elaborate private residence is a government administrator named Wang Xianchen. It was said that he was tired of official life and want to build himself a garden to do some gardening work like planting trees and vegetable, which he believed should be a life of a humble man.

I n 1513, Wang Xiancheng, an government administrator and poet of the Ming Dynasty, created a garden on the site of the Dahong Temple which had been burnt out during the Ming conquest. In 1510, he retired to his native home of Suzhou on the occasion of his father's death. He had experienced a tumultuous official life punctuated by various demotions and promotions, and gave up his last official post as a magistrate of Yongjia county in Zhejiang province, and began to work on the garden, meant to express his fine taste, received close attention from the renowned artist, a Suzhou native, and his friend, Wen Zhengming. The garden was named by a verse of a famous scholar official of Jin Dynasty, Pan Yue, in his prose he said "I enjoy a carefree life by planting trees and building my own house...I irrigate my garden and grow vegetables for me to eat...such a life suits retired official like me well". It took 16 years to complete. Wen Zhenming wrote an essay for this Garden, and painted Landscapes of it in 1533 including 31 paintings and poems to commemorate the garden. Wang's son lost the garden to pay gambling debts, and it has changed hands many times since. In 1631 the eastern garden was divided and purchased by Wang Xinyi, the Vice Minister of the Justice Board. He added many modifications over the next four years, finishing work in 1635. After completion it was renamed as Dwelling Upon Return to the Countryside. The central garden was purchased by Jiang Qi, Governor of Jiangsu in extensive renovations he renamed it Garden Rebuilt. Cao Xueqin, the author of the Dream of the Red Chamber, is supposed to have lived at the garden during his teenage years – around 1735. Among Chinese scholars, it is believed that much of the garden in his novel Dream of the Red Chamber was inspired by the scenery of the Humble Administrator's Garden.

The Humble Administrator's Garden is centered upon a lake of large size, making up about one fifth of the total area. The buildings are carefully arranged in order to match the natural beauty of lakes, ponds, artificial mountains, and various of vegetation and flora. And therefore, the garden landscape and water scape are simple, extensive and natural, and yet not at all dull since the scenes are distinctive, changeful and of interest. The garden is divided into three sections - the eastern,