III. SUZHOU GARDEN CITY

V. KABYTOVA, (Saint Petersburg)

After Beijing, we headed to the southeast of the country, to the city of Suzhou. We were traveling in a branded train, in a soft compartment, with all possible amenities. We were told that this newest train was only launched three months ago. In the compartments, in the corridors and in the toilets, we were pleasantly surprised by the sparkling, sterile cleanliness. The sofas in white covers, carpets on the floors and linen were also perfectly clean. In our compartment, a crystal bowl with a white rose, a fruit platter, and a large thermos flask were placed on a table. Each passenger was given one-time white terry slippers, paper towels and toothbrushes. Above the shelves are TVs with plasma screens. Toilets and washbasins are equipped with large paper towels and devices for washing hands with liquid soap.

Our fellow passengers were two young men: a woman in her 30s named Can, pretty, petite, with beautiful thick black hair, and her friend, an older man named Chen. We started talking. Both work in Beijing, she is a bank clerk, he is an economist. The salary of a clerk in a large bank and an engineer-economist is 500-800 dollars a month, and sometimes more. She was going to her parents ' house for a short vacation, and he was going to visit her. They cooed like lovebirds all the way. Communicating with our neighbors in the compartment, we became more and more convinced of how cheerful, friendly and friendly the Chinese are.

REMEMBERING OLD CHINA...

Suzhou is rightly called the "Venice of the East". It stands on the banks of river branches and canals. The Imperial Canal, which connected Beijing to the southeast, made Suzhou a major commercial and political center during the Ming Dynasty. Then the city had richly decorated walls and painted gates, as well as exquisite gardens in the South Chinese style. In that era, nobles, scholars and merchants enjoyed its quietness, admiring its ponds, rocks, bamboo and weeping willows, sitting in secluded pavilions by the water and reflecting on the passing of time. Suzhou is still a garden city, a miracle incarnate. As soon as we entered it, we immediately began to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of old China, looking at the white low-rise houses with black tiled roofs, pagoda-shaped awnings over the facades, with carved wooden balconies and door bars, with its narrow streets buried in greenery.

The most beautiful garden and park ensemble is the Garden of a Modest Official. It was arranged in 1513 by a retired censor who was dismissed from the civil service for "clumsily engaging in politics." Then he bought land and planted a garden. The area of the garden and park ensemble is 4 hectares. There are many reservoirs here. At the entrance there is a rock garden and an inscription telling about the history of the ensemble.

The entire territory of the garden is laid out with small river pebbles. All around are blooming magnolia and leucoea trees, thickets of bamboo, azaleas, weeping willows, bright flowers planted in ceramic and porcelain pots, many lotus ponds connected by canals and elegant stone bridges. On the banks of the ponds - gazebos-pagodas, along the banks - walking covered galleries. Red and black carp scurry in the water. The garden is beautiful at any time of the year. You can imagine it in spring, when everything is blooming, golden autumn and winter, when the ponds are covered with a thin edge of ice, and the bare branches are clearly outlined in the sky. Delight in the beauty of this man-made world, admiration for the genius of a person who did not break the gar-

Ending. For the beginning, see "Asia and Africa today", 2006, N 4, 5.

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moni nature and managed to surprisingly combine stone, water, greenery and architecture, erases the feeling of vanity in the soul.

That day was my birthday. What a wonderful gift fate has given me!

There are many pavilions in the garden. They are built either on the banks of ponds or in the middle of them and often stand on stilts. They seem to be floating on the surface of water. The most famous one is Pavilion 36 of Mandarin Ducks. These ducks are considered a symbol of marital fidelity in China. There is a well-known folk tale about brother Liang Shan-bo and sister Zhu Ying-tai. The girl was very talented, could draw well, skillfully embroider on silk and played the lute. She wrote beautiful hieroglyphs and read many ancient books. Most of all, I dreamed of studying. But at that time, women had no such right. Then Ying-tai persuaded her father to give her permission to leave home, changing into a man's dress to go to school. There she met Liang Shan-bo. The young men became very close friends: Shan-bo, of course, did not know that Ying-tai was a girl. One day my sister came to visit the teacher. One day, she was sitting in the gazebo doing embroidery. Young people were walking in the park at this time. Seeing her friends, the woman asked them to help her choose the colors of silk for the wings of a flying stork. Liang Shan-bo said that the stork's feathers are white and the tips of its wings are black. So, you need black and white threads. And the young man Ying-tai thought about it and said that it would probably be more beautiful to embroider a stork flying towards the rising sun. Then, in addition to white and black, you can choose other colors. The bird's chest should be a soft pink, and the shadows under the wings should be pale blue. And then the teacher's sister guessed that the second young man, of course, is a girl who can embroider. The next day, she invited Ying-tai to her house and advised her not to hide the truth from Shan-bo, because she realized that Ying-tai loved him. After graduation, both friends went home. On the way, the girl tried to tell the young man about her love allegorically. But he didn't understand. And they broke up. Later, the father decided to marry his daughter to a rich neighbor, and Shan-bo finally found out that Ying-tai was a girl, and realized that he had always loved her. When he heard about the upcoming wedding of his beloved and realized that they would never be together, he fell ill and died. Upon learning of his death, Zhu Ying-tai also died. At the moment of their demise, the sky opened, lightning flashed, and two Mandarin ducks flew into the air, which are popularly called lovebirds. People say: "One dies, then the other dies, they can't live without each other."

The other pavilions of the Garden are also very beautiful. There is a Temple of Solitude, a Prayer Temple, a Guest Pavilion, and a master's study with carved mahogany furniture. I don't want to leave the Garden. I would write poetry, make music, and draw there... And in fact, the Garden has inspired many poets, musicians, and artists.

POEMS COMING FROM THE HEART

The Western Park in Suzhou once belonged to the famous dignitary and philanthropist Gao Jie and was a friendly meeting place for young poets. Poetry tournaments and friendly banquets were held here, and young Gao Qi's talent was celebrated for the first time. But at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the fun came to an end. Gao Jie was executed, and many of his guests were killed or exiled. The garden has fallen into disrepair. Here are some poems dedicated to this garden and Chinese nature.

On the pond, enjoying the coolness

  
 I walk along the painted gallery, 
 the water twinkles like fireflies. 
 The flowers and leaves of the white lotus 
  give off a wonderful fragrance. 
 I don't need a round fan anymore- 
 it's windy, the dew has fallen. 
 The evening cold weather has come - harbingers of a close autumn 
 . 
 

Gao Jie (1336-1374)

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In the garden on one branch of a pear tree

  
 Flowers bloomed. 
 Long spring 
  Lingered, did not come. 
 This morning 
  I saw a blooming branch. 
 My heart fluttered. 
 Suddenly, not at the beginning of flowering, 
  But at the end, 
 And this is the last branch. 
  
 

Han Xia (circa 1644)

Listening to the cries of geese

  
 The wind is freshening, and a flock of geese  
  is noisily floating down the river.  
 Frost is brighter under a bright moon,  
  Geese are screaming, cold weather. 
 

Tao Yuan, 17th century

In one book I read a very interesting story about the landscape art of China. In it, the author writes that the garden and park ensemble is the result of the work of real design masters. In these gardens, a true harmony between man and nature has been achieved. As philosophers write, Chinese gardens are a combination of the opposites of Yin and Yang, nature and architecture, verticals and horizontals, emptiness and fullness, they are like a part of the universe that includes humans, animals and plants. Water is always the dominant element in them. It should reflect rocks, islands, and greenery.

A few kilometers from the center of Suzhou is the Cold Mountain Monastery (Hanyinansy), founded in the VI century. It houses an ancient bell, a replica of an older Tang Dynasty bell. It was donated by Japanese monks. The name of the monastery is not related to the mountains. Cold Mountains is the name of the owner of the garden and monastery.

"CHINESE VENICE"

An unforgettable impression was left by a walk along the canals of the "Chinese Venice". We boarded a covered boat and went on an hour-long cruise on the water, sailed along the Grand Canal, admiring its beautiful bridges and bridges. The water in the canals is slightly greenish and relatively clean. Along the banks are low white houses with balconies and balconies, pagoda-shaped awnings and roofs. Pagoda-shaped roofs hung with red corrugated lanterns are also made over the bridges. All bridges are built of stone. Especially good are small bridges, under which you can swim on a low boat in small side channels. Sailing along the Grand Canal, you can't help but compare its bridges with those of Venice. It is not for nothing that Marco Polo, who came here and lived in Suzhou for some time, first called this city "Eastern Venice"in 1276. One of the larger bridges resembles the Rialto Bridge, the other the Bridge of Sighs.

All the banks of the canals are inhabited and built up. And not only rich and beautiful mansions, but also miserable shacks. We swam to the pier at Tiger Hill, got out of the boat and went up to the park. The tomb of one of the princes was built on the hill in 496. For three days it was guarded by a White Tiger. Since then, the hill has borne this name. In the park you can see beautiful galleries, pagodas and temples. This is a kind of small architectural reserve. There is also the "Chinese Leaning Tower of Pisa", or Cloud Rock Pagoda. On a slab near the temple, it can be read that it was completed on the seventh day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. The tower is 47.5 meters high (7 floors) it is built of brick and decorated with stone carvings. People used to climb up rope ladders. But now it is forbidden.

At the foot of Tiger Hill stands a stone inscribed with red hieroglyphs in memory of the terrible massacre that once took place on this place during the next turmoil. On this huge stone, 1,000 people who opposed the prince were executed. Not far from the tower, in some mysterious semi-darkness, there is a gorge, above it - a small bridge with a high arch. A round hole can be seen on the bridge over the pond. When the water rose high enough, the prince's wife looked into the pond as if in a mirror. There is also a Sword Pond in the park. Legend has it that one of the princes named Wu ordered 3,000 swords to be placed in his tomb. One of the subsequent rulers wanted to dig them out, but could not: with each attempt, the pit was filled again and again with water...

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