Garden of diversion
The Garden of Amusement or Garden of Delight or Jichang Garden ( Chinese 寄 畅 园 , Pinyin Jìchàng yuán ) in Wuxi , Jiangsu Province , China, is one of the most famous private gardens in southern China Ming Dynasty designed as a family residence. The Emperor Qianlong valued this garden so much that he had the "Garden of Harmonious Mood" laid out in today's Summer Palace in Beijing based on this model .
The garden has a narrow, elongated shape and covers about 9900 square meters. To the west and south the garden is framed by two mountains; the sources of one mountain gather in the lake of the "confluent brocade waves", which forms the center of the garden. By including the two mountains in the garden design, the man-made scenery and the natural landscape merge into a harmonious whole.
Most of the buildings no longer exist today. What has been preserved is u. a. the building "parapet of knowledge about the fish", which is surrounded on three sides by the water and the counterpart to a group of stones, the so-called "beach of the crane steps", which protrude from the other bank into the water. The layout is chosen so that the scenery gives the impression of depth and distance.
On the west bank of the pond is an artificially created mountain that takes up the silhouette of a mountain in the area. A winding canyon made of limestone cuts this artificial mountain so deep that a person can pass it without being seen from the outside. The gorge accompanies a watercourse with small waterfalls. The gorge is also known as the “Gorge of Eight Sounds” after its splashing noises.
The garden has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (3-93) since 1988 .
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Coordinates: 31 ° 34 ′ 54.7 ″ N , 120 ° 15 ′ 58.1 ″ E