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	Shanghai Suburb Tour
	from Shanghia Daily Around the country, they abound ¡ª so-called "ancient Chinese gardens," supposedly steeped in history and tradition but in fact, more often than not, crowded with fake antiques, vulgar decorations and pseudo-folk culture. Like many young Chinese, I have become fed up with them, which is why I reluctantly undertook a recent journey to Jingsi Garden, a private garden in neighboring Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, built by a local businessman just five years ago. But when I stepped into the garden on a quiet afternoon, I was stunned. No fake antiques. No plastic flowers. No coarse curios. Everything is real and ancient. Located in Wujiang, just 18 kilometers south of Suzhou, Jingsi (Quiet Meditation) Garden is an elaborate showcase of truly age-old Chinese garden art. Ancient Suzhou private gardens reached their heyday during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. But due to political turmoil and wars, these gardens never appeared after the Qing Dynasty. Jingsi Garden is the first in the past 100 years to connect long-lost history with the present. Known for their refinement and delicacy, Suzhou gardens can look like a mini version of the great outdoors with crisscrossing streams, meandering narrow corridors, pocket-sized weirdly shaped stones and small hills crammed into limited spaces. Of course you can see the skills involved in creating these gardens, but it can almost be suffocating for so many beautiful things to be thrust before one's eyes ¡ª like venturing into a tiny, over-decorated room. But Jingsi Garden is different. It not only inherits the refinement of old private gardens, but also integrates the grandeur and grace of Chinese royal gardens with broad corridors, high bridges, wide lakes and magnificent stones. The garden was created by Chen Jingen, a businessman involved in chemical manufacturing and also an avid lover of old Chinese culture. He was a passionate stone collector. It took 10 years of planning and an investment of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million), but the 54-year-old finally managed to build his own private Chinese garden. Chen had dreamed of his own garden since he was eight years old when he first visited to Suzhou. "When I grow up, I will build a garden just like one of these," the fascinated little boy swore to himself. When he grew into a successful businessman, he set about fulfilling his childhood dream and finally completed Jingsi Garden five years ago. Water, stones and houses are the three treasures in the garden. Built on the Pangshan, an ancient lake, the garden is home to more than 3,000 precious Lingbi stones and dozens of old houses dating back to the Ming Dynasty. Stepping into the garden, the first thing that shocked me was a huge stone called Qing Yun. Nine meters tall and 136 tons in weight, the stone has more than 1,600 small holes connected to each other. The stone, discovered in Lingbi, Anhui Province, was created after an underwater volcanic eruption about 500 million years ago. Air bubbles in the magma are the holes we see today. If you light a fire under the stone, smoke will emerge from the holes and if you pour water on the top, water will suddenly spurt from the holes like a huge fountain. It is said the stone was discovered in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and in the Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong wanted to present it as a birthday gift to his mother but gave up on the idea because of the difficulty in transporting it. Most of the stones Chen collects and displays are from Lingbi. They look like a peacock, frog, turtle, woman's body, pine tree and many other objects, all shaped by the hand of nature. Exploring further into the garden, after several twists and turns along a winding corridor flanked by lush bamboo, the broad Mirror Lake unexpectedly unfolded in front of me. I took a boat ride on the lake to get a water view of the garden. I saw pavilions, old houses, kiosks, an opera stage, all original architecture dating back more than 400 years. The gray brick walls, dilapidated-looking bridges and dusty wooden carved window frames are all hundreds of years old. Chen collected the old houses and art pieces from different parts of the country over the past 20 years, rescuing them and reviving them in his garden. Various folk art shows are performed in the garden every day, providing a traditional local art feast for tourists. They include a tea culture show, Chinese ink painting, Suzhou Opera, silk embroidery and Chinese guzheng (ancient zither) performance. I was lucky enough to sit in the tea house for a while chatting with Dacha, a local tea master who has soaked up Chinese tea culture for the past 10 years. He offered me a cup of tea and some interesting stories about his search for precious tea leaves all around the country. When darkness fell, the red lanterns hanging along the hallways and corridors were lit one by one. It was time for dinner and the garden's bistro offered us a meal prepared by Chen Meigen, crowned as the "No. 1 chef in Wujiang." For decades, the stubborn chef has stuck to just five seasonings when cooking ¡ª oil, vinegar, salt, sugar and soybean sauce. She says only in this way can she retain the original flavor of the food she cooks and the pureness of Suzhou cuisine. Fish stewed with egg, meat ball, qianshi (gordon euryale seed) congee and river eel cooked with a secret recipe were a real banquet for a city-dweller like me. For thousands of years ancient Chinese sought to integrate into nature's great heart and soul. Though that might be wishful thinking for people of today, we do need a place where we can relax and enjoy a moment of peaceful and quiet meditation. A place like Jingsi Garden.
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