梁园 - Liang's Garden

Prior to departing Guangzhou, I made a short day trip to the neighboring city of Foshan (佛山) - literally meaning Buddhist Mountain. A friend from the area recommended that I visit Liang Yuan (梁园), or Liang's Garden. The former residence of the wealthy Liang family, this beautiful garden was heavily damaged during various periods of recent history, but was later restored. Though the gardens and building complex have many similarities to the traditional scholars gardens in and around the city of Suzhou there are distinct characteristics that differentiate the two aesthetics (stay tuned to read more about my experiences in Suzhou shortly). Liang Yuan remains today an excellent example of the distinctive design and feel of traditional manor homes in the southern provinces of China.



While I was exploring the gardens, I was approached by several local students who were working with Liang Yuan for a school project. They asked me several questions regarding my perception of the gardens and the status of its preservation. Later, their classmates, who were working on the same project with them, arrived and together completed the survey with me. They were all freshmen majoring in landscape architecture at the nearby Foshan University (www.fosu.edu.cn). They were excited to include the perspective of a foreigner in their research and wanted to take a group picture with me (as you will see below). It was nice to see their excitement for the garden preservation as well.

Me and the group of college students from Foshan University