LegendWalking the three bridges
In Tongli a bride is carried over the three bridges, and old people are helped over them on their sixty-sixth birthday, for peace, luck and long happiness.
Source: A living custom of the town
The story
In 1885 Ren Lansheng, a military intendant in Anhui, was impeached and dismissed. He came home to Tongli, a town of canals south-east of Suzhou, and asked the painter Yuan Long to design him a house and garden. He named it from a line in the Zuo Commentary: in office, think how to serve loyally; in retreat, think how to mend your faults.
The plot was wide and shallow, so the garden was laid out sideways: the house on the west, a courtyard in the middle, the garden on the east. Ren was later restored to office, and died in 1888, a year after the garden was finished.
Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Master of the Nets Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, Garden of Cultivation, Couple's Retreat Garden.
What is here
The garden is inside the old town of Tongli. The town ticket covers it in the daytime. In the evening the town streets are open freely, and the garden has its own night ticket when it opens.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The house | Tongli town ticket |
| The courtyard and the garden | Tongli town ticket |
| Night garden | Own ticket |
| Tongli town and the three bridges | Free in the evening |
If you have one minute
By the pond in the east garden
Look at the buildings round the pond. They sit right on the water, their floors hardly above it, so that the pond seems higher and fuller than it is. This is why it is called the garden that touches the water.
On the east side lies a stone boat called A Boat among Red Lotus, its prow in the pond. Across the water, the Thatched Hall of Retreat and Reflection is the main hall of the garden. Behind you, a rock hill carries a pavilion that seems to be on a second floor.
Things people often get wrong
"It is in the city of Suzhou." It is in Tongli, a water town about twenty kilometres south-east of the city centre, now part of Wujiang district.
"Retreat means a holiday." Here it means withdrawing from office to reflect on one's mistakes.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
- Ren Lansheng (Qing (1644–1912) official, 1838–1888)A Tongli man who rose to military intendant in Anhui, was impeached for corruption, built this garden, and was later restored to office before he died.
- Yuan Long (painter and designer, 19th century)A local painter and poet who designed the garden, its buildings and its hills, as a painting laid out on the ground.
Go deeper: six stops from west to east
The garden is entered through the house on the west. Walk east through the courtyard into the garden, and round the pond. One hour. Then walk the town.
1. The house
Two parallel lines of halls: the outer for receiving guests and ceremonies, the inner, with a two-storey tower, for the family. The rooms keep their furniture.
2. The middle courtyard
Between the house and the garden is a courtyard with a guest house and a study, a place for visitors who were close but not family. A small boat-shaped building stands on dry land here: a land boat.
3. The Thatched Hall of Retreat and Reflection
The main hall of the garden faces the pond from the north. From its terrace you see the whole garden in one sweep, laid round the water.
4. The nine-bend corridor and the windows
Along the corridor, each of the openwork windows holds a character in its lattice. Read them in order and they make a line of Li Bai: the clear wind and the bright moon cost not a single coin.
5. The Pavilion of Sleeping Clouds and the Coolness of Rain among the Wild Rice
The Pavilion of Sleeping Clouds sits on a rock hill so that it looks like a two-storey building; you climb inside the hill to reach it.
The waterside room called Coolness of Rain among the Wild Rice has a large mirror on its back wall, which doubles the pond. In summer it was the coolest room in the house.
6. The Sky Bridge and the town
A covered two-storey bridge, the Sky Bridge, joins the upper floors of two buildings above a walkway. It is rare in the Suzhou gardens.
Outside, Tongli is a town of islands joined by bridges. People of Tongli still walk over its three bridges, Taiping, Jili and Changqing, at weddings and birthdays, for peace, luck and long happiness.
The garden and the same years elsewhere
Ren Lansheng began building in 1885, the year Karl Benz built his first motor car. The garden was finished in 1887, the year the Eiffel Tower was begun.