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 Notes
on the Gardens |
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| Many
other parks and gardens followed in the footsteps of Zhang
Yuan. These include Yu Yuan (meaning Fools' Garden-not
the phonetically same garden mentioned before) and Shen
Yuan (Shanghai Garden), both of which were on Budding
Well Road and were built in the sixth year of the reign
of Guangxu (1890). Also included were Bansong Yuan (Mid
Wusong River Garden), both along the Bund. Bansong Yuan
was the most notable among them. In the first year of
Xuantong's reign (1909) a Catholic named Shen Zhixian
built a house with a garden at the confluence of the Huangpu
River and its tributary the Xiaochai Creek. He dubbed
his house Yulan Hall (Magnolia Hall). His relative Yao
Baihong suggested he should follow the example of Zhang
Yuan and make a profit by opening it to the public. When
the suggestion was not heeded, Yao himself built a garden
nearby with the name of Bansong Yuan. The garden had beautiful
scenery, a donkey racecourse, a photo studio, a restaurant,
plus another restaurant catering specially to vegetarians.
Commodity exhibitions were often held in the garden. To
earn more money he even allowed gambling in the garden
with cricket-fighting games every autumn. |
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Bansong
Yuan |
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Hardoon
Yuan |
Hardoon
Garden was the largest garden of Shanghai, covering more
than 170mu (7 mu=1 acre). It was built in 1909 by Hardoon,
a wealthy Jewish merchant of British nationality. The
garden contained more than 80 scenic sights, although
most of these were pavilions and storied buildings, not
much different from the structures of the other gardens.
It had also a shrine and rooms for sutra-reading, because
Mrs. Hardoon was a devout Buddhist. To provide a quiet
surrounding even the tramcar was made to change its route
near the garden. However, a big fire in the 1930's destroyed
it and reduced it to rubble. |
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Today,
some of these famous gardens remained intact, whereas
others no longer exist. Zhang Yuan and Xu Yuan are now
market-places. Yu Yuan and Shen Yuan were demolished
in 1917, though the thoroughfare passing by is still
called Yu Yuan Road. The gunfire of the Anti-Japanese
War wrecked Bansong Yuan. Its site is now a busy waterfront
street. The private garden of Li Hongzhang, an eminent
Mandarin, became the premises of Fudan Middle School.
The garden of Huang Jinrong, a former Shanghai big wig,
became Quilin Park, Yijia Hua Yuan (Yi Family Garden),
a famous garden at Jiangwan built by the fifth son of
Yi Chengzhong, a well-known merchant from Zhejiang province,
has been turned into a sanitarium for T.B. convalescents.
Another well-known private garden has been changed into
Huashan Hospital. In 1955, on the site of the erstwhile
Hardoon Garden, the magnificent building of the Shanghai
Exhibition Center was erected.
A private
garden on Hongqiao Road
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