Shuzhuang Garden

Shuzhuang Garden, 菽庄花园 in Chinese, is located at the foot of the Longtou Hill in the south of Gulangyu Island sandwiched between ocean and cliffs. The garden covers an area of about 1. 65 acres, but it embraces a boundless expanse of blue water. With great originality and excellent workmanship, the garden is incomparably exquisite. Few tourists know that it was once the private garden of a Taiwan businessman, Lin Shuzang."Shuzhuang" is the homonym of his name. Lin Shuzang, also named Lin Erjia, was of Fujian origin. His ancestors moved to Taiwan about 200 years ago. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, his father moved back and settled down in Gulangyu Island. In the fall of 1913, Shuzhuang Garden was built after the layout of the Yihong Yard in which Magic Jade, or Jia Baoyu, a hero In a famous novel The Dream of Red Mansions lives. Meant as an exquisite replica of Banqiao villa in Taipei, Taiwan, it subsequently became a garden park open to the public in the 1950s.
The garden is near the sea and sheltered by hills. The garden and the sea become a unified entity in which the sea is the extension of the garden and the garden adorns the sea. This creates the impression of infinite space by harnessing the natural sloping terrain.
When you look around the garden, you may find that Sunlight Rock looks like an adornment of the painted screen, and the boats on the sea like yachts in it, even the adjoining golden beach seems to have become part of it. The whole garden consists of two parts : Canghai Yuan, or the Garden of Hiding the Sea, and Bushan Yuan, or the Garden of Making-up Hills. Throughout the garden there are named scenes, five in Canghai Yuan and five in Bushan Yuan. The garden designers showed great ingenuity in the construction of the garden by cleverly employing nearby elements.