The Way of Nature and the Efforts of Man

As the Chinese saying goes：“Above in heaven there is paradise, below on earththere are Suzhou and Hangzhou”. Coming to the beautiful scenery of Hangzhou, onewill immediately think of the West Lake whose beauty consists in the wide expanse ofrippling, clear-blue waters, like “liuli”or ancient Chinese glass. The West Lake is agift of nature, but its beauty owes itself also to man's ideas and efforts.

From nature, Hangzhou has got not only a lake but also many many other waterscenes such as gushing springs, creeks, cataracts, brooks and dales and pools, etc.All these provide the necessary materials for garden design in Hangzhou.

What is known as Nine Brooks and Eighteen Dales is a good example of howpicturesque scenery is formed out of water scenes. Located at the foot of Cockscomb（Ji Guan）Hill that is surrounded by Lion Peak and other hills southwest of the WestLake, the Nine Brooks and Eighteen Dales is shaped like the letter “Y”, along asinuously winding mountain path from Dragon Well （Long Jing）to the Nine Brooks Teahouse that extends for a distance of about six km between wooded hills, oftencrisscrossed by limpid mountain streams. Here is found a maze of brooks, one fromRed Bayberry Ridge（Yang Mei Ling）, one from Old Dragon Well（Lao Long Jing）and some others from Buddhist Rock （Fo Shi）, Cloud Stream （Yun Xi）, etc.,altogether nine in number. That is how the name Nine Brooks has come about.

In regard to the gardens of Hangzhou, it is often said：“No water bodies, noscenery”. There were initially various types of water bodies as gifts of nature inHangzhou. By exploiting the natural conditions and by first of all developingingenious artistic conceptualizations in garden design, channels were dug and waterponds were dredged. In the end, there have emerged many water scenes with highaesthetic appeal. For instance, by making use of branching streams, mountain brooksand springs on the sites of future gardens, by ingeniously placing and designinggarden buildings and rockeries and by deploying trees and flowers to their best effect,meaningful and beautiful scenery will be created. A case in point is a branchingstream about only three meters wide south of Enjoying the Sight of Fish at Play atFlower Harbor. Here on the banks are now planted rows upons rows of weepingwillows, but the banks themselves are kept in their natural state without anembankment of stone or of any other material. It is a cool, placid nook of a placewith the waters in the stream limpid and clear on which in a breeze the delicateshadows of willows will sway and flicker, lending to a place otherwise utterly quietand static a sense of movement and motion. When one takes a rest here, one gains aperspective of considerable depth owing to the artistic conceptualization of“A willow-filled estuary”.