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2021年1月7日发(作者：翟承祚)
Master-of-Nets Garden
The Master-of-Nets Garden is the historical monument for national reservation.
And it is inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO. The garden
was founded in the 1180 in the Southern Song Dynasty. Its founder was Shi
Zhengzhi, a high official of the Song Court. The earliest name of the garden was
the Ten Thousand Volumes Hall. The residence was also known as Fisherman’s
Retreat.
In the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1796) of the Qing Dynasty, a bureaucrat
named Song Zongyuan bought it and built a garden on the site after he went into
retirement. Drawing inspiration from the name of Fisherman’s Retreat, he called
the garden Wangshi Yuan which meant Fisherman’s Garden, or the garden of
the Master of the Fishing Nets. It most popular name in English is the
Master- of-Nets Garden. Such a name could express the owner’s aloofness from
politics and material pursuits.
The garden covers an area of 1.35 acre, and is compactly laid out, with halls,
corridors and pavilions well positioned. The garden is of typical residential style.
It’s very unique in Suzhou.
The residential area is in the eastern part of the garden. From south to north are
arranged three elegantly decorated halls—the sedan hall, main hall and rear hall,
which are symmetrically built along the same axis.
Sedan-Chair Hall
Now we have arrived at the gate of the garden. It is one of the very few early
homes that can be seen today. You might have noticed that the gate is raised way
above the ground, making room for the threshold, which stands about three feet
high. You may wonder why the threshold was made so high. Well, in the old
times, the height of the threshold indicated the social standing of the family.
There is a side door next to the main gate, used by servants and common people.
The main gate was opened only for the senior members of the family and their
distinguished guests, who would come and go in sedan-chairs. When the gate
opened, the threshold would be removed to let the sedan-chair pass through. This
hall is where the sedan-chair would be parked, so it has the name of Sedan-Chair
Hall. The two small rooms flanking the entrance were provided for the
doorkeepers and sedan-chair carriers. And the carriers might also sit on the two
long benches by the windows.
One of the typical features of Suzhou’s traditional houses is building of small
courtyards, like the two we see here. Their practical function is to let in light and
air as well as to drain rain water away. Hung above is a wooden tablet with four
characters, which mean “to be an upright and capable person (or official)
earlier.” Shown below is a lacquer-carving painting which gives visitors a
panoramic view of the whole garden.
We are coming from the south now and moving north. Standing behind the
screen, you may see some carved stone niches over the doorway, which were
originally reserved for the ancestral tablets of the family. The niches are relics of
the Southern Song Dynasty.
Brick-Carved Gateway

The most elaborate brick carving of the gateway is really worth studying. It
dates back to the Qianlong’s reign of the Qing Dynasty, some 250 years ago, but
it is still kept in excellent repair.
The peony flowers and bats carved in relief are symbols of wealth and good luck.
There also three-dimensional carvings of figures from theatrical stories. The
figurines on the east side tell story of King Wen requesting Jiang Ziya to be his
military advisor. The story took place some 3100 years ago. The inscription over
the doorway says something like Soaring upon Literary Talent. The figurines on
the west side show how General Guo Ziyi celebrated his birthday. The story was
set in the Tang Dynasty.
Bricks are also used to face the door panels as a precaution against fire, so the
gate is called the Wind- Fire Gate.
Grand Reception Hall
Here is the main reception hall of the residence, known as Ten Thousand
Volumes’ Hall. Everything inside is very formally and symmetrically displayed,
such as furniture and the wall hangings.
The owner used to greet his guests at the gateway and lead them into this hall.
Also held in this hall were important ceremonies for birthday, wedding day and
so on. The chairs and tables her are typical Ming Dynasty furniture of the 16th
century. You can tell that from their simple and clear cut lines without marble
inlay.
Shown in the middle of the hall is a bronze drum, which was popular in the
Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces southwest China. Bronze drums have a long
history of some 2700 years. They were used as musical instruments for memorial
ceremonies or battles. Local villagers beat bronze drums for festivals, marriage
celebrations, feasts, bull-fighting, etc. The garden displays such a bronze drum to
enrich the cultural background in such a classical garden.
Chamber with Best Views
Here is the reception hall for the ladies of the family. It’s built on a somewhat
smaller scale, but it’s a more private chamber than the male quarters. The upper
rooms, formerly used by the women as bedrooms, command good views of
suburban hill and scenes inside the city wall.
In the front courtyard grow two osmanthus trees creating a poetic atmosphere.
Other rooms to the east of the hall and to the west of the hall are concealed from
public views, behind the walls.
A private entry to the other side, the northeast side, gives easy access to the
backyard of the house. Or we may pass through another entry on the northwest
side to enter the garden proper.
Hall of Ascending Cloud
We come into a garden court with a three-bay house. It is named the Hall of
Ascending Cloud. Trees and rockeries are well arranged with a moon gate on the
east side, which leads to a two-storied building. Suzhou dialect storytelling and
ballad-singing are performed here in the evening when the night garden is open
to the public from March to November.
Five Peaks Library
It is a two-storey classical building, which was originally the library of the owner
of the garden. Books used to be stored upstairs, and down here the five-bay room
was used as a winter retreat in addition to being a reading room.
Through the glass windows we may look out into this courtyard featuring both
evergreen trees and deciduous trees with rockeries and white walls as the
background.
How to go upstairs? A wooden stairway can lead you to go upstairs in another
building known as the Hall of Mind Concentration,
Hall of Mind Concentration
This place used to be one of the reading-rooms of the garden’s owner. From here
the central space of the garden is already visible. Upstairs was the bedroom for
grown-up daughters of the family. So the whole building is popularly known as
Young Lady’s Building. No gentleman was permitted to enter. In front of the hall
is a courtyard, very small but very poetic, with two bamboo groves growing quite
well. Walking southward through the courtyard and a moon gate, we can get to
the Bamboo Flanked Verandah.
Bamboo Flanked Verandah
This open-sided verandah resembles the cabin of a boat when it is viewed from
the south and southwest. We can have a panorama of scenes over the pond. To
the left we may see a yellow rock which rises over the water’s edge like a cliff.
The wisteria vines coil about the rockery, and the water seems to flow by the
rockery and run freely under a stone bridge towards unknown sources.
Situated south beyond the pond is another rock-piled hill, which is named Mount
Yungang. It is piled up with yellow stones. If we follow the walkway by the
wisteria and circle around the pond, we’ll get to two nice pavilions, one is the
water-side studio for washing hat-tassels; the other is a pavilion for viewing the
rising moon.
Hall of Viewing Pines and Paintings
Leaving the Bamboo Flanked Verandah and strolling northwest, we may arrive
at the Hall of Viewing Pine and Paintings, which is a major building in the
garden proper, formally used as a painting studio. Because it is designed on a