Photo taken on April 28, 2017 shows the scenery of the Chinese Scholar's Garden at the Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
Located behind a cottage row in Snug Harbor and regarded as a hidden gem in New York's Staten Island, the Chinese Scholar's Garden offers a pleasant surprise for its visitors.
"The Garden of Poetic Pleasure," reads a plaque upon the entry, in Chinese calligraphy.
Poetry is richly dwelled on in this garden, the idea of which was first conceived in 1984.
Frances Paulo Huber, then Snug Harbor Botanical Garden's president, recognized the presence of Asian cultures among the harbor's sailor community at the time, and the idea was later evolved into this garden, Puiyan Taglianetti, an educator at Snug Harbor, told Xinhua.
Opening to the public since June 1999, it was the first authentic Chinese Scholar's Garden in the United States.
The resemblance to its Chinese prototype is astonishing. In fact, the whole concept of the layout was carried out on the other side of the Pacific, as the garden is based on the original design of Zou Gongwu, one of China's leading scholars in classic garden design.
All the architectural components were prefabricated, and all rocks were carefully chosen in Suzhou, China's long-acclaimed Garden City.
"It isn't modeled after any one particular garden in China, it is generally a Ming-Dynasty era type of gardens," said Taglianetti, while walking the visitors through the 1-acre retreat.
The small exquisite layout is compacted with Chinese philosophy. Visitors would be presented with the first suspense when they are blocked by a wood screen upon entering.
"Many scholar's gardens don't want to show the obvious," she explained, as this could give visitors anticipation and the excitement of the unknown.
The connotation of the Chinese culture unfolds as visitors get in. The windows on the courtyard wall, for example, give no blockage to the outside while serving merely as a frame, offering an ever-changing view beyond the border, thus representing a very common Chinese design concept of "borrowed view."
Like its Chinese models, the New York Chinese Scholar's Garden is a reflection of the Chinese view of the universe, a complete assertion of heaven and earth. The yin-yang concept of cosmic forces can be found in the varying shapes of colors, textures as well as spaces of the bricks, rocks, and eavesdrops.
Flowers and trees are intersected with passageways, bridges and gates, emphasizing China's traditional connection between house and garden, landscape and structure. Water and rock coexist in even tiny spaces, symbolizing arteries and bones of a Chinese house.
"It makes me wanna go to China," Shannon Moonui, a 22-year-old college girl living in Staten Island, said on her first visit to this place.
The garden is a dedicate work by a team of 40 Chinese artists and craftsmen, who spent a year in China creating the garden's components and another six months in Staten Island to complete the construction.
In 2016, the Chinese Scholar's Garden received about 10,000 tourists, a quarter of which belonging to education tours. For this year, the garden's administration department is projecting an increase of visitors, especially of students coming here to learn about Chinese culture.
The garden also serves as a popular place for the likes of wedding picture and film shooting, with its exotic scenery in the metropolitan area.
The philosophy of retreating to nature is shared by Chinese and Westerners alike, despite their vast cultural differences.
"One of the things we always try is to get people understand to be in touch with their senses, to be in touch of nature that is around them," said Taglianetti.
"It was to escape from your daily stress, which is something I found very key particularly in this day and age, where everything is so fast-paced and moving. You have got to step back, enjoy, relax, and be at peace here," she added.
