Yu Yuan Garden
Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai is a private classical garden in China. The word Yu Yuan literally means the Garden of Happiness. This garden is located in the heart of Shanghai's old city, a few blocks south of the Bund Embankment. The total garden area is about two hectares. There are more than 40 attractions on its territory. Both the inner and outer gardens were built in the classical style of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). There are many rocky places, trees, ponds, passageways, walls with dragon lines, winding bridges that divide the various places of the garden and pavilions.
The first owner of the Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai, Pan Yunduan, who was the provincial treasurer during the Ming era, decided to build a garden resembling the imperial garden in Beijing to please his parents in his old age. The construction, which began in 1559, was stopped and resumed due to lack of money, but it was not completed for 20 years. Yunduan's father, former Minister of Punishments Pan Enm, did not live to see the garden completed. Moreover, the owner of the garden went bankrupt, and the descendants wanted to sell his brainchild. There were merchants who were willing to buy Yu Yuan at a low price. Later, the garden was incorporated into the Temple of the Patron Deity of the City. The part of Yu Yuan known as the Inner Garden was completed in 1709.
Over the next 4 centuries, the park either gradually declined or suffered as a result of military operations. In 1760, merchants acquired the park and rebuilt it; the park suffered during the opium war in 1842 and in 1942, when the Japanese were in the city, and in 1853 one of the pavilions of the park became the headquarters of the Taiping rebellion. In 1956, the Park began to be restored and it has been open to visitors since 1961. And in 1987, the park was finally restored and began to look the same as it did several hundred years ago.
After the restoration, all the features of the park were preserved with its artificial slides, pavilions, ponds, gazebos, bridges, and outdoor terraces, which are wonderfully tasteful in the surrounding landscape. There are more than 40 picturesque places and attractions in the park, special attention is drawn to the passages in the walls – they are made in a bizarrely diverse form and do not repeat each other, as well as the dragon located at the top of one of the walls. There is a legend associated with this dragon: in ancient China, only the emperor could use the dragon image, while others could be executed for it. To avoid punishment, Pan Duan depicted a dragon with a toad near its mouth. The dragon symbolized the emperor, and the toad symbolized Pan Duan himself, who was ready to serve the emperor "without sparing his belly." The garden also houses the temple of the City Gods, who were supposedly supposed to protect the peace and tranquility of Shanghai. Dating back to the Ming era, this temple complex once housed a statue of the patron god Shanhai and occupied a territory equal to the area of a modern bazaar. Of the entire complex, a small and very interesting restored temple has been preserved, which is very popular with tourists. One of the main attractions of the Yu Yuan Garden is the Magnificent jade Rock. This is a large porous 5-ton rock of a bizarre shape, which is said to have been brought here from Taihu Lake in the town of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. This stone has a wrinkled surface and a slender shape. It's like he's letting in light. In some places, due to the action of water at the time when the stone was on the lake, holes formed in it. One legend says that when the stone was found about 1,000 years ago, it originally belonged to the private collection of Emperor Huizong during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and only after some time was brought to the Yu Yuan Garden.
There are many shops around the garden where you can buy traditional Chinese goods, as well as gold and jewelry. The park is open until 5 p.m. If possible, it is better not to go to the park on weekends – there are too many people.
