SLENDER WEST LAKE, YANGZHOU
Wenhui Daily, June 14, 1962
The Slender West Lake of Yangzhou is a narrow strip of water dotted with some isles at the confluence of several rivers. On its banks numerous twigs of weeping willows flutter in the wind ever so gently. As landmarks go, the Five-Pavilion Bridge and the White Pagoda situated in the water's widest section are to the Slender West Lake what the Jade Flowery Islet is to the Beihai Park of Beijing and what the Pagoda in Protection of Qian Chu is to the West Lake of Hangzhou. The White Pagoda looks like the very spit of its namesake in the Beihai Park except that the latter looks more proportionate; tall, slim and graceful as it gazes down at the lake through sun-lit clouds, it is worlds apart from the solid and poised presence of its prototype. Looking into the distance from the Anglers' Platform, one finds the White Pagoda and the FivePavilion Bridge framed separately in its two gates, forming a picture of high spatiality and spirituality. Every visitor who catches this vista intentionally or unintentionally will be captivated by its highly resonant but utterly unspeakable delicateness. This is a textbook example of view borrowing, a technique unique to the traditional Chinese craft of gardens. The largest isle in the lake is fashioned in imitation of the Golden Hill of Zhenjiang, and is therefore named "Lesser Golden Hill." The adjectives in the names of the Lesser Golden Hill, the Slender West Lake and the Lesser Qinhuai River are apt for the graceful images of these three landmarks of Yangzhou. For the same reason, I would like to liken the Slender West Lake to a potted miniature landscape—despite its smallness one can easily decipher an abundance of beauty from it.
There are no tall mountains around the Slender West Lake. The Mountain-Level Hall and the Avalokitesvara Mountain to its northwest are neither sky-reaching nor precipitous—they just bear a rough resemblance to a mountain. Gardens were therefore built along the lakeshores to adorn the landscape of Yangzhou. From the Grand Occasions of Southern Inspection Tours, a Qing-dynasty compendium of one hundred and twenty volumes, as well as Zhao Zhibi's An Illustrated Record of the Mountain-Level Hall, Li Dou's Record of the Painted Pleasure Boats of Yangzhou, and Luo Zaitian's Paintings of Scenic Spots in Yangzhou, we may get some idea about the scenery of the Slender West Lake in its heyday under the reigns of emperors Qianlong and Jiaqing of the Qing. There, every loft, terrace, pavilion, or verandah, every chamber or cave, and every flower or rockery dating back to those years was not without its innovative conception. The private gardens built around the Slender West Lake were now congregated, now dispersed, but all the while they accommodated to each other and borrowed one another's vistas to form a fabulous scenic belt that extended from the North City Gate to the Mountain-Level Hall, with boats on the lake ferrying visitors from one garden to another. The buildings around the lake were single- or two-storied structures laid out on an irregular, ever-changing plan that enhanced the three-dimensional space and echoed the low-lying water surface, thereby giving prominence to the White Pagoda and the Five-Pavilion Bridge and incorporating far-off scenes and sights at the Mountain-Level Hall and Avalokitesvara Mountain through view-borrowing.
Extra attention was paid to meshing the buildings along the lakeshore with the water surface, and to guiding the water to flow along winding embankments, so that the water surface could be utilized to increase the limited land acreage. The techniques adopted by our predecessors in the scenic arrangement of the Slender West Lake are still viable today. As to artificial mountains, I believe they should be built into flat ridges or gentle slopes to form undulating terrains that help break the flat and straight lake surface and the flat field around it, so that the landscape can be beautified and more changes can be facilitated to the topography and spatial segmentation of small gardens contained in larger ones.
The Yangzhou school of traditional gardens is a synthesis of the grand and majestic style of north China and the subtle and elegant style of south China, a synthesis in which the relationship between Suzhou gardens' emphasis on gracefulness and subtlety and northern gardens' stress on weightiness and solidity is tweaked to a nicety. In terms of color tones, it would not hurt to add a bit of bright color to the low-key ornamental style of Yangzhou gardens, which is how the Slender West Lake's mist-and-drizzle water surface is brought to life in vivid and refreshing ways. The Rainbow Bridge of today, for instance, was known as "Red Bridge" in bygone days for its vermilion-lacquered balustrades.
The Mountain-Level Hall commands a vintage point over the scenic zone of the Slender West Lake. Those standing in front of it can stretch their eyes over many a mile of terra incognita over the land of the Yangtze River Delta, and what they can see is thoroughly condensed in the couplet inside of the Mountain-Level Hall,
Rising at dawn to lean over a rail,
All the six dynasties' green hills I behold;
Raising a cup of wine at nightfall,
Two thirds of shiny moon I see overhead.
The celebrated poet Du Mu (803-852) improvised while climbing a mountain on an autumn day,
Faint are the green hills and distant the waters,
At autumn's end Jiangnan's grass never withers.
The hall stands as tall as the mountains on the other side of the Yangtze, hence its name, the "Mountain-Level Hall," which captures exactly the secret of the view in question. As the Mountain-Level Hall commands a far and wide vista, discretion should be applied to the heights of buildings in front of it. If a thick cluster of storied buildings were built at its foot so that the visitor can look afar to see the hilly scenery of the Jiangnan area and look down at the Slender West Lake close at hand, they would unavoidably rival with the Mountain-Level Hall for visitors' favor, but neither side would be happy with the result. My suggestion is that nearby buildings be kept low enough to hug the winding tail of the lake's scenic belt. In this way the height of the hall is brought into focus and people's field of vision will not be blocked, so that when they look afar against a railing beyond the Slender West Lake's mirror-like surface, he would keep aahing and oohing over the celestial picture of hills and abodes gleaming amidst the thick foliage of weeping willows.
As an ancient city dating back to the Sui-Tang period (581-907), the former site of Yangzhou behind the Mountain-Level Hall is strewn with spots of cultural and historical interest accumulated over the last millennium and more. Such a fact is deeply ingrained in people's minds through so many famous men of letters' poems and inscriptions. These include the maze-like former palaces of Emperor Yang of the Sui, the Bridge of Twenty-Fours eulogized by Du Mu and Jiang Kui (1154-1221) in verse, the Mountain-Level Hall built by Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), and the Rainbow-Leaning Garden at the Rainbow Bridge, where famous poets gathered to improvise verse to the tinkling of earthen bowls. Like the Slender West Lake's Twenty Sceneries, including the Mist and Rain over Four Bridges, the White Pagoda in Clouds on a Fine Day, the Spring Terrace under the Bright Moon, and the Shugang Hillock in Evening Glow, they have enticed numerous visitors to the Slender West Lake and added a wealth of perennial tales to local folklore. These ancient sites and scenic resorts should be assiduously selected for repairs and refurbishment, for every one of them is a condensed embodiment of the Chinese craft of gardens as well as a crystallization of landscape in combination with literature and art.
As Yangzhou used to be known as a "Green Willow City," and as the Green Willow Village is found on the Slender West Lake, it follows all too naturally that the Slender West Lake should be kept green primarily with weeping willows. The willow tree's high profile in this city probably began with the excursions of Yangzhou by Emperor Yang of the Sui, and has since been maintained to this day. Having gone through a metamorphosis of more than one thousand years, the fascinations of Yangzhou seem to have everything to do with the emerald richness of the willows. By singlehandedly dressing up Yangzhou into the famed seat of the Eastern Huainan Circuit, these willows cannot but be regarded as a success story. Achieved by giving due consideration to a single tree species' graceful appearances and high adaptability to local conditions, such a success need be made to last.
Talk about the springtime beauty of the Slender West Lake, and I think my favorite view is that of the Long Dyke Draped with Spring Willows. Talk about the lake when the sun emerges right after a summer rain, and I love nothing more than the Mist and Rain over Four Bridges. After all, weeping willows can always be suited to their environment to a T wherever they find themselves, be it a mountain slope or riverside, along a canopied walkway or at the foot of a pavilion. They look exceptionally pliant and endearing when swaying in the wind.
Apart from the willows, Yangzhou is also known for its arboreous and herbaceous peonies. In fact, a woody peony terrace, and a herbaceous peony hedge in particular, can be the centerpiece of a certain garden. The popularity of the herbaceous peony on the Slender West Lake during the Song is well attested in the "The Yangzhou Adagio" by Jiang Kui:
The Bridge of Twenty-Fours does still exist,
While ripples glitter and undulate,
Frigid is the moon ever so silent.
I wonder the peonies that by the bridges sit,
For whom do they bloom year in, year out?
The bamboos, too, enjoy a long history in Yangzhou, where, as the saying goes, "Beauty lies west of the bamboo-flanked road." Ancient painters like Shitao (1642-c. 1707), Zheng Xie (1693-1765) and Jin Nong (1687-1763), among others, have bestowed a rich legacy of bamboo paintings on posterity. The Yangzhou species of bamboo differs from its Jiangnan counterparts in that there is always a touch of masculine vigour in its serene gracefulness. There being no mountains in the surroundings of the Slender West Lake, it seems the bamboo should be planted widely so that its lush green foliage can sway and roll in the air while goose-yellow willows' twigs keep stroking the lake surface—it does not sound unreasonable to enhance the lake's appeals by bringing the elegant and divine charms of both the bamboo and the willow into full play, does it?
The other plants that thrive in the climate of the Slender West Lake include yulan magnolia and plantain, nandina and wintersweet, crabapple and flowering peach and apricot. All of them should be cultivated because, firstly, they are harmonious with bamboos and willows in both color and imagery, and, secondly, they can take seasonal turns to bedeck the lakeside scenery with beautiful leaves and flowers. The evergreen "book-binding grass" spotted at the foot of a mountain or a tree is another local specialty. The lake being rather small, the acreage of its water space sown to lotus ought to be strictly minimized. Pines, supplemented with ginkgos, should be planted as barriers around the Mountain-Level Hall, for both trees can grow tall enough to form a wall, not to mention the fact that Yangzhou actually leads all the ancient cities in this country in the number of mammoth ginkgo trees. All the big trees in the city should be preserved the best we can in future urban development efforts. Just as The Craft of Gardens puts it,
If a site is covered with many old trees that would get in the way of the eaves or walls of a building, one must erect a house at a certain distance, or just lop off a few branches to keep off the roof. As the saying goes, it is easy to carve pillars and build flying beams, but it takes a long time to get a Chinese scholar tree to grow tall and develop a shady foliage.
Yangzhou's miniature landscapes follow a hallowed tradition that has long been neck and neck with those of Suzhou in the Jiangnan area. Rugged, wrinkled, durable, and highly resistant to the elements and adaptable to the environment, such miniature landscapes are marked for their robust and richly varied contours and postures without the least bit of pretentious bashfulness. Thanks to local craftsmen's painstaking efforts in pruning and binding, every dwarf pine, cypress or little-leaf box features curvy branches on an ancient-looking trunk, with boughs dexterously trained into "cloud sheets"—artistic results attained by dovetailing human craftsmanship to nature's endowment. The other Yangzhou miniature landscapes include potted chrysanthemums, stumps of peach, plum and pomelo trees, and medicinal citrons, but every one of them is alluring in a special way. The Yangzhou style of miniature landscapes is a hybrid of southern and northern styles, particularly those of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. It is the local artists' enduring innovative craftsmanship that makes them stand out as a school in their own right.
To enjoy and digest the charms of all the man-made scenic wonders along the small, narrow and gyrating water surface of the Slender West Lake calls for an appropriate means of touring and sightseeing. Observed through the window of a fast-moving automobile, the entire scenic resort comes and goes without so much as an eyewink, which robs the visitor of the chance to feast his eyes on every scenery in rain and breeze or the gentle waves beyond misty islets. If the automobile is replaced with a painted boat that starts from the Lesser Qinhuai River in city proper and spies slowly into the lake, the lengthened route and timetable allow the visitor to scrutinize and ruminate, through the boat's window frames, numerous enchanting pictures that flash by in a magic montage. Such an experience, which also allows for measured drinking and toasting, is worlds apart from wining and dining on board a pleasure yacht that prowls the West Lake in Hangzhou. As Wang Shizhen (1634-1711)1 writes in a poem:
A painted boat passed 'neath the bridge at high noon,
Gone are her figure and scented sleeves all too soon.
My advice to those opting to visit the Slender West Lake: Take your time and appreciate everything you can see over there. It makes no sense to go all the way there only to take a cursory look and leave in a hurry.
The inscriptions on couplets and boards in traditional Chinese gardens and scenic resorts are most helpful to visitors, offering them the most succinct and beautiful interpretations to relevant scenes and sights. The Slender West Lake is no exception, where every phrase or sentence for such inscriptions was painstakingly hammered out, and their calligraphic styles discreetly chosen. Just to cite two such couplets quoted from Tang poems on the Loft of Mist and Rain over Four Bridges in the Record of the Painted Pleasure Boats of Yangzhou:
Silent the flowers, gentle the swinging tree shadows;
Thin clouds in sunny sky, spreading out the willows.
Spring mist arises from ancient stones;
Sparse willows reflected in new pools.
Both couplets, coming readily from the poets' fingertips, brim with wits and verve. In them, scenery and architecture boil down to one word, "leanness," which is apt for the Slender West Lake, and contravening words are prudently shunned. Thus unity is maintained not only on the color tones of various scenery but also on the poems selected, which convinces me that the craft of Chinese gardens is a combination of multiple principles of art.
To sum up, as a scenic resort of Yangzhou, the Slender West Lake is a veritable depository of small gardens designed and built by bringing a narrow strip of water and natural terrain into full play. Such gardens are at once detached and attached, some playing a leading role, some are supplementary, but all the time they borrow and accommodate to each other's views. Such mutual view borrowing, though limited in scope, brings about an infinite panoply of scenes and sights. Many such gardens are patterned after prototypes in ways that are never mechanical but highly creative, which is why the Slender West Lake can figure prominently among all traditional Chinese gardens with a "personality" peculiarly its own. It is thus clear the craft of gardens does have its principles but offers no set patterns. Once such principles as "accommodating to different conditions" and "view borrowing" are deftly mastered, every plateau or low slope, and every mountain pavilion or waterside verandah can be deployed with a high degree of adaptability and discipline, and all the scenic sights thus created can prolong their "youth" no matter what happens to their environment.
The rise of the picturesque Slender West Lake is not without its historical background. To refurbish and preserve such a historical scenic resort, we have got to bear its inherent characteristics in mind, but more importantly, we must consider how to adapt it to everyday life today, so as to make the past serve the present without ruining its originality. This issue merits deliberation and discussion. If we do a good job in this regard, more new scenes and views are bound to emerge beyond the existing twenty views of the Slender West Lake. As to such issues as how to adapt scenic attractions to the circumstances and achieve good view-borrowing results while economizing on human and material resources, I believe the Slender West Lake has a lot to learn from, especially in how to arrange gardens and scenic belts in medium-sized and small cities. However, the wisdom and initiatives of localities must be keenly mobilized, for only thus can gardens look different from one another and every scenery thus created can stay novel on its own. This account of mine about the Slender West Lake is, if anything, just a glimpse of it.
A new fairyland as if painted on a scroll ten-mile wide;
Having two-thirds shiny moon, Yangzhou is in itself old.
It is my belief that through reconstruction efforts in the days to come, the Slender West Lake shall become more enchanting.