COUNTRY DWELLINGS AND GARDENS
History of Chinese Ancient Architecture, First manuscript, 1958
Rural areas are home to the overwhelming majority of the labouring people who never slacken their effort to augment their lives by blanketing their homeland in greenery. This tradition furnishes a wealth of themes and prototypes for landscape and architectural garden-making. It sounds easy and simple to keep the countryside green, but if done in light of local conditions, with materials obtained locally and put to best use, it can augment the environment, blend dwellings into nature, and bring about forest belts where man-made and natural scenery become one. This tradition is particularly pronounced in the Jiangnan area, where the landscape is typified by a tiny bridge sitting on a flowing brook and green bamboos casting shadows that sway upon white-washed walls. To summarize and study these practices and seek improvement on the basis of scientific analyses will do a great deal of good for endeavours to ameliorate our living environment, boost production, and promote the craft of gardens in urban areas.
Because the southern and northern parts of our vast homeland differ in geography and climate, especially between mountainous areas and plains, they must be dealt with differently in our forestation effort. Most mountain folks grow trees on the right, left and back sides of homes situated mostly in a mountain or at the foot of a cliff. Mao Zedong's former residence in Shaoshanchong village, Xiangtan county, is such a good example. Most villages on the plains are found by the side of a river or road; most of them are surrounded with trees, but more trees are found on the northwest side to ward off the scorching sun and high wind. The same is true with houses. A clearance is reserved in front of every house for sunning or thrashing harvested farm crops, and a line of trees are planted in the front for demarcation purposes. Tall trees are planted north of the houses, but in the Jiangnan area they are replaced with bamboos which can also provide shade and bring in cool breezes in summer. Chickens love to nest in bamboo groves and feed on the insects that abound in bamboo roots, and their hyperactive claws can loosen the soil to facilitate bamboos' growth—the mingling of bamboos and chickens at a homestead is, indeed, a winning situation. Roads tucked away under the canopy-like foliage of trees, and weeping willows rippling every water surface with soft twigs offer idyllic views. Every tree or bamboo planted in the countryside has its own functional and aesthetic values. In the Jiangnan area evergreen and deciduous trees are often aligned in alternate rows, but there are also places where only a single species of arbor is planted for both its fruit and timber, such as chestnut, tallow and
chinaberry trees. Hardwood trees such as wingceltis and photinia, and trees that produce quality timber, such as gingko and Chinese little-leaf box, are not uncommon as well. These trees are pruned and intermediately felled on an annual basis, with the timber thus harvested to make farm tools and furniture. Native species such as camphor in south Zhejiang, banyans in south Fujian, and poplars and pagoda trees in north China have long been afforestation "trademarks" for their respective areas because their thick foliage provides cozy shelter against the high-noon sun and their exuberant verdure graces many a garden. Oftentimes hedgerows built of evergreen scrubs are erected where a wall is needed around a dwelling.
Bamboo groves and fruit trees growing by the side of a residence also help boost farm produce. Trees can be planted on river or pond shores for productive purposes, as exemplified by the Lichee Bay of Guangzhou in Guangdong province. Reed, water caltrop and lotus are also raised in ponds and lagoons such as the South Lake of Jiaxing and the lotus ponds of Nantang to augment villager earnings. These undertakings have a direct or indirect impact on garden-making as well. Flowers and trees serving gardening purposes are somewhat alien to nature for their poses and contours but enjoy an intimate affinity with rural dwellings. This is especially true with hardwood trees; pruned at regular intervals, they add an idyllic touch to the country scene. Landscape paintings, such as "Willow-Shaded Winding Walkway," "Secluded Parasol-and-Bamboo Pavilion," "Lotus-Scented Breeze from Four Sides," may well have been inspired by or derived from rural forestation and greening efforts—they are tiny, but practical sceneries brought about through such attempts.
The bridges in traditional Chinese gardens are often balustraded on one side and left open on the other, to the bewilderment of many observers. This arrangement is actually adapted to everyday rural life. When a peasant crosses a bridge with a load on both ends of his shoulder pole, or with a buffalo in tow, his movement is likely to be hampered if the bridge is narrow, and, worse, balustraded on both sides. This is why many rural bridges have no balustrades at all or have a balustrade on just one side. In what is a typical case of someone being well-read but having a poor memory of his ancestors' way of doing things, garden crafters of later generations often forget this simple reason and turn a small bridge into a narrow lane by sandwiching it between tall railings.
Bridges, be they fashioned out of a single board astride a rivulet, stepping stones embedded in a crystal clear stream, or zigzagging ones that span a relatively wide river, come in a myriad of shapes and designs that are captivating to those who happened to be there when nearby mountains are bathed in sunset glow, the skies disappear into the aromatic verdure on the horizon, and fishing boats come home with fishermen chanting. A waterside pavilion ought to be decorated with a tiny path, with tall trees planted to the northwest to keep off the sun, so that the sceneries high and low can set off each other and their silhouettes can wreak up a picture-perfect havoc in the water—sayings like "A pavilion settled beside water" and "A small trail poised to twist and turn" are most probably originated therein. A winding sand embankment, or a tiny slope dipping into a wild pool never fails to become a prototype in the eyes of a landscape gardener, for they come handy to call forth natural delights. The Humble Administrator's Garden abounded in such casual delights in its old days, but many of them have been lost to the stone embankments built lately. A garden crafter unfamiliar with country sceneries tends to plunge headlong into vulgarities like someone who has just hit a windfall. Worse, some ponds have had their bottoms paved with mosaic tiles, and therefore look like swimming pools.
Rural architecture delights and enchants people by dint of terrains running up and down, sceneries now widely scattered, now thickly clustered, buildings laid out in layered depth, trees kept close by or at a distance, colors light or rich, black or white contrasting each other (such as white-washed walls against black roof tiles in the Jiangnan area), and country dwellings that come in a hundred and one styles—these and other vistas bring about a montage that I find most endearing, delighting and consoling on my journeys by boat or by car. These sceneries, however, cannot do without buildings. Wherever there are buildings there is life, and wherever there is life there are people. When people are associated with sceneries, their feelings interflow with what meets their eyes. Most traditional gardens in China draw on country scenes and sights, but they are not mere imitations of nature, for buildings always come foremost on their premises. As most garden builders hail from the countryside and love to instill their experience in rural life into what they are working on, this has resulted in distinctly unique gardens in which people can sit down to forget worldly worries for some time or see what they can as they saunter through such a garden. Congeniality is fostered between people and garden this way.
The countryside teems with quiet bamboos and fabulous woods, in which wild birds and poultry warble or chuckle in contentment. When spring sets in and water becomes warm, the rivers are seething with geese and ducks swimming imperturbably to and fro in flocks—a view that also materializes at many a "Pavilion for Birds Flying In" in gardens. The pity is that most of the zoos today are built according to out-dated blueprints, and thus in most of them birds are shut up in large cages like prisoners craning their necks behind bars. Lack of experience in life and compassion is to blame for such cruel treatment of man's winged friends.