Humble Administrator's
Garden
 Humble
Administrator's Garden (Zhouzheng Yuan)
is the largest garden in Suzhou, located
in the northeastern section of the city,
and one of the four most famous classical
gardens in China. The garden's scenery is
focused on a central pond with various buildings
of pavilions, terraces, chambers, and towers
located by the water or on hillocks in a
natural, unsophisticated, and appropriate
composition. The garden is most representative
of Chinese classical gardens in the Ming
Dynasty. It was laid out in 1513 by the
censor, Wang Xiancheng, after his retirement
from political life. He named the garden
after an essay by Pan Yue of Jing Era, "On
Idle Living,": "Building house
and planting trees, watering garden and
growing vegetables are the affairs (Zheng)
of humble (Zhuo) people." After his
death, his son gambled away the garden.
 When
Taiping troops occupied Suzhou in 1860,
King Zhongwang picked this site and the
neighboring buildings of the present historical
museum as a residence as well as a center
for his political activities. The entire
grounds can be divided into three parts:
eastern, central, and western. The central
one is especially worth a visit. It centers
around Yuanxiang Tang pavilion. Two artificial
islands linked to each other in the lotus
pond north of the pavilion are densely overgrown
with bamboo plants and trees, creating the
impression that the entire garden is floating
on water. In the western part, Sanshiliu
Yuanyang Guan Hall (the Hall of the Thirty-Six
Mandarin Ducks, will attract the visitor's
special interest. On the adjoining lake,
one used to be able to see mandarin ducks--a
symbol of marital faithfulness. Today, some
of the mandarin ducks swim in a fenced-off
part of the lake. West of the garden, there
is a noteworthy bonsai exhibition and a
teahouse.
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