GRATIFICATION GARDEN, INNER GARDEN, SHANGHAI
Cultural Artifacts, Issue No. 6, 1957
The complex comprising the Gratification Garden and the Inner Garden, with the City God's Temple in between, is one of the old gardens that remain relatively intact to this day in Shanghai. As it is located in the most densely populated area of the metropolis, the municipal culture bureau and cultural heritage administration has stepped up its management and refurbishment in an effort to provide ideal greenery to this area and a cosy place where people can relax and see the scenery. As a participant in such an effort over the years, I would like to share my experience and discoveries with my readers.
The garden was built by Pan Yunduan (1526-1601)1, a Shanghai native who served as administrative commissioner of Sichuan province during the Wanli reign of Emperor Shenzong (1573-1620) of the Ming. He called it "Gratification Garden" because he built it to gratify his father Pan En (1496-1582), a retired minister of justice during the Jiajing reign of Emperor Shizong (1521-1566) of the same dynasty. Its construction began in 1559, the thirty-eighth year of the Jiajing reign, and was completed eighteen years later in 1577, the fifth year of the Wanli reign. Sprawling on a lot of over seventy mu, it became one of the few famous gardens in the Jiangnan area at the time. The Pans' Mansion, situated to the east of the garden on Benevolence-Cherishing Street at Phoenix Tree Road, with one of its Five Old Peaks now in the former Yans' Mansion on Yan'an Road Central, was at the time the largest of its kind in Shanghai. In the mid-17th century, the garden fell into dilapidation with the decline of the Pan family. In 1760, the twenty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing, some local gentries pooled money and bought part of the garden complex, restored it and named it "West Garden," with the Inner Garden built in 1709, the forty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign, renamed "East Garden."
During the Daoguang reign (1821-1851) of the Qing, local authorities consigned the long decaying Gratification Garden to twenty-one trade associations, whose leaders overhauled their respective portions and converted them into conference halls. The garden sustained a major destruction during the five-day occupation of the City God's Temple by the British troops during the First Opium War in 1842, the twenty-second year of the Daoguang reign, and was destroyed even more seriously in 1860, the tenth year of the Xianfeng reign (1851-1862), at the hands of the BritishFrench troops who took the City God's Temple and suppressed the Heavenly Kingdoms uprising in league with the Qing government. Towards the end of the Qing, the area west of the garden became marketplace, and the size of the garden diminished as a result. The roads close by the garden today, such as Sunshine Condensing Road, Painted Boat Road, and Nine Lions Road, are named respectively after the Sunshine Condensing Belvedere, Hall of Painted Boat and Nine Lions Pavilion in the garden's precincts in old days.
Though the Gratification Garden remains torn apart to this day, its former glory is still discernable for the most part of it. According to a new urban development plan of Shanghai, the lost parts shall be reverted to the garden. The Gratification Garden we see today was actually part of its original northeast corner, which features a massive artificial mountain, with a pond dug and pavilions built at its foot, and its space divided vertically in two by a bridge sitting astride a stream. Across the stream stands a belvedere, with a roofed walkway with latticed windows running through them, whereas the stream takes a series of twists before turning to the garden's east part, where it is flanked by more rockeries and verandahs. Thanks to adoption of Ming-dynasty garden-making techniques, rockeries and water surfaces in the garden are now clustered, now strewn to humour the terrain, with major scenic spots set off properly by secondary ones.
The central building in the area of the great artificial mountain is the "Profuse Beauty Hall," which faces the mountain at its eastern foot. The mountain, built by Zhang Nanyang (c. 1517-1596)2 on a pile of earth, is the largest extant yellow stone work in the Jiangnan area. The path winding its way up and down the mountain, and the stream taking a zigzagging course at its foot seem ever ready to conduct the visitor to fascinating nooks and crannies. Having walked along the aforementioned roofed walkway by the side of the Profuse Beauty Hall, one steps upon the mountain's footpath and sees a stone tablet inscribed with the words, "Stream and mountain to be marvelled at in serenity," in the handwriting of the celebrated calligrapher Zhu Yunming (1460-1526)3.
The observation deck atop this mountain provides a panoramic view of the garden. In old days, the masts of junks drifting down the Huangpu River in the distance could be seen from the balustrade of a tiny pavilion standing by the deck. Hence its name, "RiverWatcher's Pavilion." Another small pavilion at the foot of the mountain is silhouetted in the pond. Also tossing its reflection into the water from the other side of the pond is the Mountain-Admiring Hall, a two-story building with a richly variegated façade. This is where the water in the pond forks, with one branch running northwest into the mountain and cascading down to a ravine in a noisy chaos of spray. The other branch is a narrow strip of clear water that takes a detour beyond the gazebo and runs eastward past the Loft of Ten Thousand Flowers, where it flows on through a moon gate in the wall to no one knows where—all the while it is flanked by graceful-looking rockeries and ancient trees whose rich foliage blocks the sun and enhances the peace and quiet of the scene.
In the courtyard before the Loft of Ten Thousand Flowers, a large gingko tree extends its boughs in all directions to interplay with well-spaced yulan magnolia's leaves. Judging from its trunk, with a girth larger than a man's arm span, the gingko is likely to have been there as early as the Ming. The grand artificial mountain excels in magnificence and majesty, and the pond wins with its widely extravert character, but the stream, for all its tininess, can still square them off with its deep and serene presence. What is laudable about the garden's design is that its placid stream and double-lane loggia are well coordinated, whereas through the waterside gazebo's pivotal transitional role, coupled with the brick-framed hollowed windows' segmentation and play of perspective, the space is expanded instantly and layered richly, making it possible to pack a profusion of spellbinding sights into a small lot.
Running eastward, the tiny stream begins to widen gradually upon reaching the front of the Spring Adorning Hall. (There used to be a Western-style building in front of this hall in the southwest, but it was demolished in 1958 to make way for a rearrangement of vistas.)
Opposite the Spring Adorning Hall, and surrounded on three sides by water is the Belvedere of Female Phoenix Waltzing and Male Phoenix Wobbling. In front of the belvedere stands the Hall of Balmy Sunshine, with a wall to the east providing the background for an artificial mountain in the breathtaking shape of an overhanging cliff. This mountain is encircled by a pond filled with water cascading down the rockery. Gazing westward from the Belvedere of Delight on the mountain's summit at the eastern end, one finds that the garden's giant artificial mountain looks as if it were shifted right before the balustrade. Its steep cliff is enclosed behind a tracery-topped wall together with the Verandah of Reposed Comfort. The views beyond this verandah are faintly visible through latticed windows, but if observed from without, the sights within the wall look like belonging to the pavilions and terraces inside the seemingly unfathomable courtyard next door.
The winding roofed walkway of the Spring Adorning Hall provides access to the Room for Private Dialogue by the side of a pavilion with a well under its roof and the studio upon the artificial mountain reachable through a cave in it. The Spring Adorning Hall is a former site of the people's revolution—in 1853, the third year of the Xianfeng reign of the Qing, it was the headquarters of an uprising launched by Liu Lichuan (1820-1855) and members of his Small Dagger Society, who liberated the seat of Shanghai county from the government for seventeen months.
The Inner Garden was as "East Garden" when it was built in 1709, the forty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing. As one of the small traditional gardens in Jiangnan, it is well conserved, with its pavilions, terraces, flowers and trees, as well as the pond and rockeries laid out tidily on a two-mu lot. Its architectural centerpiece, the Sunny Snow Hall, faces an artificial mountain whose back and wings are encircled by storied buildings. Its other major buildings include the Loft of Prolonged Serenity and the Wave-Watchers' Loft. The Pavilion of Manifold Verdure sits on a knoll surrounded by a dragon-topped wall and exotic rocks scattered among emerald bamboos. A small gate opens onto the Nine-Lion Pond, with the said pavilion and terrace reflected in its crystal clear water. Anyone sitting in the roofed corridor by the side of the pond and watching the slender bamboos and swimming fish will be impressed with the exceptional serenity of the surroundings. The pond could not be smaller, yet no crampedness is felt as water keeps flowing out of it from the mouth of a cave underneath the dragon-topped wall. The roofed walkway takes a turn at the pond before returning to the Sunny Snow Hall. The name of the Wave-Watchers' Loft, where the waves in the Huangpu River could be observed in old days, is only nominal today because the view is totally blocked by a cluster of shopping malls.
Given their small sizes, the gardens built during the Qing are greedily packed with buildings and sceneries. As pavilions, terraces, lofts and verandahs are squeezed into their small lots, there is no way for these gardens to look natural and commodious. The impact of such greediness is especially apparent in the Inner Garden, which, therefore, compares unfavorably with the Gratification Garden whose builders refused to be encumbered by frivolities in their bold and rather concise plan for it. However, fine designs can still be found in the Inner Garden, including the methodically circuitous layout close by the Nine-Lion Pond, and the vast space in front of the Sunny Snow Hall.
Notwithstanding the "preordained" differences in layout between the Gratification Garden and its Inner Garden, much of the scraggly disorder in rockwork and architecture and the uncouth additions and repairs are aftermaths of wilful repairs done by the aforementioned trade associations in the late years of the Qing. Future repair and maintenance planners ought to pay due attention to restoring both gardens' original plans, so that all the elements that have an ill effect upon the eye can be removed and all the old delights restored.
In this short article I have said little of the other attractions that belonged to the Gratification Garden in its former days because all of them have been inundated in the din and traffic of metropolitan Shanghai. These include the Greater Lotus Pond, the Nine-Bend Bridge, the Moon-Bestowed Loft, the Exquisite Jade Boulder from Lake Tai, and the Nine Lions Pavilion4.