拙政园 - The Humble Administrator's Garden

Located in northeastern Suzhou, the Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政园) covers 5.2 hectares (approximately 13 acres) and is considered one of the four finest gardens in all of Suzhou. In 1997, it was listed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

Bearing witness to the fame of the garden, there were quite a few people visiting it the same day as I - but I think the garden's beauty still shines through . . .

This garden was created in the year 1509 A.D. on the grounds of an earlier Tang Dynasty garden by Wang Xianchen (王献臣), a powerful official in the Ming Imperial Court, when he withdrew from government service. He took inspiration for his garden from an essay entitled "Staying at Home Idle" by the Jin writer Pan Yue. This essay concerned the humble luxury of cultivating one's vegetable garden, hence the derivation of the name (from The Classical Gardens of Suzhou by Xu Wentao, trans. by Dong Xiaoming). However, the beautiful garden is not merely a relic of the past for the garden regularly hosts several flower festivals including the spring Rhododendron Show and summer Lotus (Nelumbo) Festival.