Chinese Gardens Field Guide for School Groups

The Big Question

Why would someone build a mountain and a lake inside their own walls?

A Chinese garden can look like a piece of wild countryside: rocks piled into cliffs, a pond with uneven banks, a path that never runs straight. In fact every rock, tree and window was placed by hand. The Ming garden designer Ji Cheng (计成) put the aim in eight characters: 虽由人作，宛自天开, made by people, but as if made by heaven. Students find out four things:

What is a garden made of? The rockery, the water, the pavilions, the covered walkways, the walls with patterned windows and the plants, and what each one does.
How does a small garden feel big? How paths, walls and windows hide and reveal views as you walk.
Who were these gardens for? Why scholar-officials built gardens to retreat into without leaving the city.
How is this different from a garden in Europe? A Chinese garden beside the straight lines and fountains of Versailles, and what each says about the person who built it.

The Big Picture

A retreat without leaving town

About 1,600 years ago the poet Tao Yuanming (陶渊明) gave up his post as an official at the age of 38 and went home to farm. In his poems Returning to Live in the Fields (归园田居) he wrote that he had been a bird in a cage and was now back to nature (久在樊笼里，复得返自然). For the scholar-officials who came after him, he became the model of an honest, simple, free life.

Most scholar-officials could not simply walk away. A garden let them have both: a house in the city, and behind its walls a small world of mountains and water where they could read, paint, write poems and meet friends. The garden faced inwards, towards the owner's own mind, not outwards towards the street. The names say so:

Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政园), Suzhou, built in the early 1500s by a retired official, Wang Xianchen. The name comes from an essay by the poet Pan Yue about an idle life at home, watering his garden and selling vegetables.
Master of the Nets Garden (网师园), Suzhou. A master of the nets is a fisherman, and in Chinese poems the fisherman is a hermit who lives by rivers and lakes, far from the court. An earlier garden on the site was called Fisherman's Retreat (渔隐).

Scholar gardens and imperial gardens. Scholar gardens (私家园林) were small and private, built beside the owner's house, mostly in the south around Suzhou. Imperial gardens (皇家园林) were huge parks built by the emperors, mostly around Beijing. Emperors admired the southern gardens and copied them: in 1751 the Qianlong emperor visited Jichang Garden (寄畅园) in Wuxi, took its plans home and built a copy in his new park in Beijing. That copy is the Garden of Harmonious Interests (谐趣园) in today's Summer Palace.

Year	What happened
Early 1500s	Wang Xianchen builds the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou
1593	The Lingering Garden (留园) is begun in Suzhou
1631	Ji Cheng finishes The Craft of Gardens (园冶), China's best-known book on garden design
1750	The Qianlong emperor builds the Garden of Clear Ripples (清漪园) in Beijing as a gift to his mother
1751	He copies Jichang Garden inside it; the copy is renamed the Garden of Harmonious Interests in 1811
About 1770	Song Zongyuan rebuilds a Suzhou garden and names it Master of the Nets
1860	British and French troops burn the Garden of Clear Ripples
1888	It is rebuilt and renamed the Summer Palace (颐和园)
1997 and 2000	The Classical Gardens of Suzhou are listed as World Heritage
1998	The Summer Palace is listed as World Heritage

Reading a Garden

The parts and what they do

A garden is built from a few parts used again and again. Each one stands for something in nature, and each one changes what you see and feel as you walk.

Part	Chinese	It stands for	What it does to you
Rockery	假山, “false mountain”	Mountains, cliffs and caves	Blocks the view, makes you climb, squeeze through and look up
Water	水	Rivers, lakes and the sea	Opens up space and reflects sky and buildings
Pavilion	亭	A resting place in the mountains	Gives you a seat and a view, and tells you where to stop
Covered walkway	廊	A path through the hills	Leads you on and bends to show new views
Wall, doorway, patterned window	墙、门洞、漏窗	The edge of the world	Hides some views and frames others, so you see a little at a time
Plants	花木	The seasons, and good character	Change the garden through the year and carry meanings
A view from outside	借景, borrowed scenery	The world beyond the wall	Makes the garden feel bigger than it is

Plan of an imaginary scholar's garden: a house at the front, a rockery hiding the entrance, a wall with a round doorway and patterned windows, a pond at the centre with a pavilion, bending covered walkways, a rockery and hall at the back, bamboo, and a pagoda outside the wall seen as a borrowed view — How the parts fit together in an imaginary scholar's garden; the numbers match the stations · Diagram: PreeChina

Opposites in pairs. The parts are set against each other: hard rock beside soft water, a dark walkway beside a bright courtyard, a narrow path before a wide view. The Chinese word for landscape, 山水, already joins two opposites: mountain and water.

Stations

Eight stations, in any order

Each station is one part of a garden. Students do them wherever they find that part.

Station 1 The way in: a hidden view障景

Look. Stand just inside the entrance. Can you see the whole garden, or does something block your view?

Looking out from a dark hall through an open doorway to a small white-walled courtyard — Lingering Garden, Suzhou: one small courtyard leads to another doorway · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. Many gardens put a rock, a wall or a screen just inside the gate, so the best view is hidden at first. This is a blocking view (障景). Writers use the same trick, 欲扬先抑: hold back first, so the big moment feels bigger.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Station 2 The rockery假山

Look. Find the biggest pile of rocks in the garden. Is there a path through it, a cave, or steps to the top?

Grey rocks piled into peaks and caves around a pond in the Lion Grove Garden — The rock maze of the Lion Grove Garden, Suzhou · Photo: licensed stock image

A tall single grey rock full of holes, standing on its own in front of a hall — A single rock set up like a sculpture, Lingering Garden · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. Garden rocks were meant to be seen as mountain ranges and towering peaks. The most prized were Taihu rocks (太湖石), named after Lake Tai near Suzhou, full of holes and hollows; a single fine rock was set up on its own like a sculpture. The Lion Grove Garden (狮子林) in Suzhou is a maze of rock with 9 paths and 21 cave openings.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Station 3 Water水

Look. Find the pond and walk along its edge. Is the bank straight or uneven? Can you see where the water begins and ends?

A pond with a pavilion on a rocky bank, perfectly reflected in still water — Humble Administrator's Garden: the pond doubles every building and tree · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. A small pond stands for rivers, lakes and even the sea. Water is usually the centre of the garden, with buildings, rocks and paths around it. At the Summer Palace the idea is huge: Kunming Lake covers about three quarters of the 293-hectare park.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Station 4 Pavilions and names亭台楼阁

Look. Find a pavilion or hall with a wooden board over the door. Is the writing in Chinese characters?

Inside a hall, a large wooden name board with four black Chinese characters — The Hall of Thirty-Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks (卅六鸳鸯馆), Humble Administrator's Garden; read the board right to left · {STOCK}

Know. Buildings in a garden were given names, written on boards and often taken from poems. The name tells visitors what to notice from that spot, such as the moon, the wind in the bamboo or the birds on the pond. A garden was meant to be read as well as seen.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Station 5 Covered walkways廊

Look. Find a covered walkway. Does it run straight, or does it bend, climb and turn?

A covered walkway with red railings crossing a pond like a bridge, between two pavilions — A covered walkway crosses the water as a bridge, Humble Administrator's Garden · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. Covered walkways join the buildings, keep off sun and rain, and lead visitors on a route the designer chose. They rarely run straight: at each bend a new scene appears, an effect called 移步换景, the view changes with every step. The Long Corridor (长廊) at the Summer Palace is the longest in any Chinese garden: 728 m and 273 bays, with thousands of paintings on its beams.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Full station, as in the guide

Station 6 Walls, doorways and patterned windows门洞与漏窗

Look. Find a white wall with openings in it. What shapes are the doorways? Are the windows open holes, or filled with patterns?

An eight-sided doorway in a white wall framing a small courtyard of bamboo — An eight-sided doorway frames bamboo like a painting, Lion Grove Garden · Photo: licensed stock image

A white wall with a patterned window, showing a glimpse of a courtyard beyond — A patterned window shows the next courtyard before you reach it · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. Walls divide a garden into many small spaces, so you never see it all at once. Doorways and window openings frame views like pictures, inviting you to stop and look. Patterned windows (漏窗) let you glimpse what lies beyond; with plants or rocks set behind them, they make the space feel larger than it is.

Think. A wall usually shuts things out. How does a wall in a Chinese garden make the garden feel bigger instead of smaller?

Do.

Explore: Find three different doorway shapes (round, vase, leaf, eight-sided) and sketch them.
Extend: Walk along one wall and count how many different window patterns it has.
Challenge: Choose one framed view and sketch it inside its frame, as if it were a painting hung on the wall.

Then & Now. Photographers and film makers still frame a scene through a doorway or window to make you look harder. Find a frame like this in a building or garden you know in Perth.

Station 7 Borrowed scenery借景

Look. At the Summer Palace, stand on the eastern shore of Kunming Lake and look west. What do you see on the hill beyond the park?

Know. Designers borrowed views from outside the walls, so that a hill or a tower far away became part of the garden. From the Summer Palace you can see Jade Spring Hill (玉泉山) and its pagoda outside the park to the west, and they look like part of it. In Suzhou, the Humble Administrator's Garden borrows the North Temple Pagoda (北寺塔) beyond its wall. Ji Cheng summed up good design as 巧于因借，精在体宜: be clever at using the site and borrowing what lies beyond it, and get the proportions right.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

Station 8 Plants and their meanings花木

Look. Find bamboo, a pine, and an orchid or plum if you can. Where in the garden are they planted?

Lotus leaves covering a pond in front of a two-storey hall — In summer, lotus leaves cover the ponds of the Humble Administrator's Garden · Photo: licensed stock image

Know. Plants were chosen for what they meant as well as how they looked. Bamboo stood for a person of integrity; orchids for a gentleman of quiet good character; the pine, green all winter, for long life. Plants also show the seasons, so a garden looks different in every month.

The Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for this station are in the full guide.

East and West

Looking inward, looking outward

A Chinese scholar's garden and a royal garden in Europe were built for opposite reasons. The scholar's garden was a private retreat that looked inward, towards the owner's own mind. The great garden at Versailles was a stage that looked outward and showed the world the power of the king.

	Chinese scholar's garden	Versailles, France
Built by	Retired or off-duty scholar-officials	King Louis XIV, from 1661, with his gardener André Le Nôtre
Style	Xieyi (写意), “writing the idea”: the feeling of mountains and water, not an exact copy	Geometry: straight avenues, symmetry, flowerbeds in patterns
Nature	Made to look as if nature made it	Nature trimmed, shaped and put in order
How you see it	From inside, a little at a time	Long straight avenues and wide open views
What happened there	Reading, painting, poems, quiet talk with friends	Festivals, receptions and fountain shows; Louis XIV wrote his own guide to showing the gardens, in seven versions between 1689 and 1705
Symbols	Hermits, fishermen, bamboo and pine	Apollo, god of the sun: the Sun King; some 400 statues and 55 pools and fountains
The message	“I have stepped back from the world.”	“I rule the world.”

A painting of the Palace of Versailles seen from above, with straight avenues and rectangular gardens running to the horizon — Versailles in about 1668, painted by Pierre Patel. Palace of Versailles collection; public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A formal garden seen from above: flowerbeds cut into curling patterns, rows of small trees in boxes, and a round pool with a fountain — The Orangerie parterre at Versailles. Photo: Urban, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Not every garden fits the pattern

Chinese imperial gardens also showed power. The Qianlong emperor spent 4.48 million taels of silver on the Garden of Clear Ripples and copied famous southern scenes into it. Bringing the best landscapes of the empire into one park showed that the empire was his.
English gardens turned against straight lines. In the 1700s many English landowners swept away formal gardens for natural-looking parks. At Stowe, the Whig politician Viscount Cobham filled his garden with temples carrying a political message: liberty and parliament, against too much royal power.
Chinese ideas reached Europe. William Chambers published Designs of Chinese Buildings in 1757 and built the ten-storey, 50 m Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens in London in 1761.

A Greek-style temple with columns standing alone on a wide lawn among trees — The Temple of Concord and Victory at Stowe. Photo: Michael Maggs, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An eighteenth-century watercolour of a tall pagoda rising above trees in an English garden — The Great Pagoda at Kew in 1763, by William Marlow. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

Big Talk

What does a garden say about its owner?

Every garden carries a message from the person who paid for it. The guide compares five and asks students to decide what each one is saying.

Garden	Built for	Shape
Master of the Nets Garden, Suzhou	Song Zongyuan, about 1770	Small, hidden, winding, around one pond
Summer Palace, Beijing	The Qianlong emperor, 1750; rebuilt 1888	A vast lake and hill, with copies of southern gardens inside
Versailles, France	King Louis XIV, from 1661	Straight avenues, fountains and statues
Stowe, England	Viscount Cobham, a Whig politician	Natural-looking park with temples and monuments
Chinese Garden of Friendship, Sydney	New South Wales and Guangdong, for Australia's bicentenary in 1988	Designed by Chinese landscape architects, built by Australian craftsmen

The idea also travelled the other way: in 1980 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York built an indoor Chinese garden court modelled on one courtyard of the Master of the Nets Garden.

For Teachers

Curriculum links

Year levels follow the Western Australian Curriculum from the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA). Teachers using another curriculum can map the same stations to their own course; check the content descriptions against the current documents.

Station or section	Year · Learning area	Content it supports
Big picture, East and West	Year 7 HASS · History	Depth study of an ancient society (China option): beliefs, values and the role of officials
East and West, Big Talk	Year 8 HASS · History	Depth study options including Medieval Europe and the power of kings, where taught
Stations 3 and 7, Big Talk	Year 7 HASS · Geography	Place and liveability: how people design and use spaces
Station 2	Year 8 Science · Earth and space sciences	How water weathers and erodes rock
Stations 4, 6 and 8	Years 7 and 8 The Arts · Visual Arts	Observing and sketching; how artists frame and compose a view
Station 5	Years 7 and 8 Mathematics	Measurement, estimation and rates

Glossary

Names to match on the signs

Chinese	Pinyin	English
园林	yuánlín	garden
山水	shānshuǐ	landscape, "mountain and water"
写意	xiěyì	"writing the idea"
私家园林	sījiā yuánlín	private (scholar's) garden
皇家园林	huángjiā yuánlín	imperial garden
假山	jiǎshān	rockery
太湖石	Tàihú shí	Taihu rock
亭	tíng	pavilion
廊	láng	covered walkway
漏窗	lòuchuāng	patterned window
障景	zhàngjǐng	blocking view
借景	jièjǐng	borrowed scenery
移步换景	yíbù huànjǐng	the view changes with every step
拙政园	Zhuōzhèng Yuán	Humble Administrator's Garden
网师园	Wǎngshī Yuán	Master of the Nets Garden
留园	Liú Yuán	Lingering Garden
狮子林	Shīzi Lín	Lion Grove Garden
颐和园	Yíhé Yuán	Summer Palace
谐趣园	Xiéqù Yuán	Garden of Harmonious Interests

Full Guide

For teachers and trip leaders

Get the full Chinese gardens field guide

The full guide is a printable PDF for teachers, school trip leaders and travel companies. It adds what this preview leaves out:

the Think, Do and Then & Now tasks for every station, at three levels (Explore, Extend, Challenge)
the Test it yourself sheet and the Back to the big question worksheet
teacher pages: curriculum links, answers and notes for the day

Use the request form and tell us your name, your school or company, and the guide you want. PreeChina sends the PDF by email for use with your own classes.

Request the full guide

Sources

Sources and credits

Ji Cheng and The Craft of Gardens: Chinese Social Sciences Net
Tao Yuanming: Xiao Ying, Tsinghua University / Guangming Daily
Humble Administrator's Garden (Wikipedia)
Master of the Nets Garden: Maigoo
Lingering Garden and Lion Grove Garden: Our China Story
Classical Gardens of Suzhou: World Heritage Site
Summer Palace: Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism
Garden of Harmonious Interests and Jichang Garden: Maigoo
Blocking views: Beijing Daily
Rocks, water, windows, plant symbols: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Nature of the Chinese Garden
Versailles: gardens and groves · Louis XIV's guide to the gardens
English landscape garden: The Gardens Trust · National Trust, history of Stowe
Great Pagoda, Kew Gardens (Wikipedia)
Chinese Garden of Friendship: Darling Harbour

The other field guides are listed on the field guides page; for a Beijing trip, see the Beijing field guides.