Visitors immersed in Chinese art, literature

Los Angeles native Randall Bartlett sat under the arched rooftop of a traditional Chinese scholar's studio. Intricate golden dragons embroidered on his black shirt glistened in the sun as he occasionally flipped a page of his book.

Nearby, an elderly couple paused to read calligraphy chiseled into a cloud-shaped rock. Across a pebbled mosaic pathway, a small group in their 20s gathered around a shimmering lake framed by willow trees to take photos of turtles hiding amid the water lilies.

The setting was the revamped Liu Fang Yuan garden, also known as the Garden of Flowing Fragrance－a 6-hectare space at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in an affluent suburb nearly 18 kilometers northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

"I didn't have this when I grew up, so when I found it, it was just spectacular. Instead of being inside the Huntington Library and seeing a painting or a photograph of it, this (garden) is living and breathing," Bartlett said.

Intrigued by Asian culture from an early age, Bartlett drives 60 km from his home in Santa Clarita, California, to the Huntington Library several times a month. The collections-based educational and research institution is located in San Marino, Los Angeles County.

Bartlett's favorite spot at the venue is the Liu Fang Yuan garden, which he visits regularly to meditate and read. For him, the garden brings to life the Chinese philosophies he learned from books.

"I have never had the opportunity to travel to Asia. There are only a few gardens in the United States I've seen that represent some of things I may be able to enjoy were I to go to China and see some of the beautiful architecture and gardens they have there," said Bartlett, who has a vast collection of Chinese literature at home.

By immersing its visitors in arts and literature, Liu Fang Yuan, built by US and Chinese artisans, transcends international boundaries and bridges the cultural gaps between the two countries. Although it is situated thousands of kilometers from China, it also connects the Chinese diaspora with ancestors and rich culture back home.

After a postponement of nearly five months due to the pandemic, Liu Fang Yuan reopened to the public in October with 4.6 hectares of new landscape.

The additions include several pavilions and courtyards, a replica of a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) scholar's studio, a restaurant, a complex of walled courtyards displaying miniature landscapes known as penjing, and a pavilion situated at the garden's highest point.

The expansion took the garden's total area to just over 6 hectares, making it one of the largest classical-style Chinese gardens in the world. When it first opened in 2008, the venue had eight pavilions and occupied more than 1.4 hectares.

Phillip E. Bloom, curator of the Chinese Garden and director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies at the Huntington, said: "It's been 16 years of construction. Around 2000, we had a master plan made for the garden, but the idea for the venue goes back to the 1980s."

The initial aim was to create a collection of Chinese plants, particularly those found in gardens in the US that were originally cultivated from China, Bloom said.

"When I was a kid, we had peonies in our yard, and I probably just assumed that peonies were from the US or Europe, but of course they are Chinese," he said.

After research, the director of the Huntington's botanical gardens realized that plants alone were not sufficient to demonstrate the essence of a Chinese garden－a combination of pavilions, courtyards, water, rockeries, calligraphy and plants. As a result, he started talking to Chinese Americans in the area to learn about Chinese gardens, Bloom said.

Eventually, it was decided to model a garden on 16th and 17th century scholarly retreats in Suzhou, a city near Shanghai.

The decision was made partly because of the prominence of classical gardens in that city, but also because parallels were found between the Huntington and Suzhou gardens.

Assistance sought

Bloom said that Henry Huntington, founder of the Huntington Library, was a US railroad magnate who used his fortune to collect rare books, artworks and to create gardens.

"Many Suzhou gardens were created by literati or scholars who were highly educated, but a lot were also created by merchants who tried to emulate a scholarly lifestyle," he added.

To preserve the authenticity of the Suzhou gardens, the Huntington Library sought help from the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architecture Design and the Suzhou Garden Development Co, triggering collaboration between US and Chinese architects, contractors and designers.

The garden's first construction phase took place between 2004 and 2008, followed by a second phase from 2012 to 2014 and a final one from 2018 to this year. In all stages of construction, artisans from Suzhou were flown in to work on details of the venue by hand.

At the site, Chinese and US artisans often exchanged ideas and conversation.

"The Americans spoke either English or Spanish, while the Chinese artisans spoke Putonghua or Suzhouhua (the Suzhou dialect). To communicate, they relied a lot on sign language, so that was kind of an interesting thing to see," Bloom said.

He added that it has been very meaningful to see how people from local communities interact with the garden.

"There are some people who come every morning to walk the garden. There are people who bring their children or grandchildren every weekend, and then we have a lot of guides and volunteers who come to all sorts of different lectures about Chinese culture or to concerts that we hold periodically. It's had a pretty big community impact," he said.

For Mei-Lee Ney, a Shanghai-born immigrant and a major donor to the garden, it is a place where she can share her heritage with her community.

"I just thought it was a wonderful thing to do, to bring the Suzhou garden－to bring a part of China－to the United States, and it was wonderful that it was coming to my hometown," said Ney, president of an investment advisory company in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, who migrated to the US at age 2.

Although she was still an infant when her family left Shanghai, she has fond memories of traveling to China with her mother as an adult. She has been working on her mother's memoirs for many years, and the garden evokes tales of her mother's childhood and that of her grandparents.

"I just feel that I have such a deep connection to China through my mother. The Chinese garden really reminds me of her and keeps me connected to her memories and also to where I was born," Ney said.

A new addition during the third phase of construction was Verdant Microcosm, a 1,662-square-meter area designed to display penjing. It holds a special place in Ney's heart because her mother had four penjing in the courtyard at home.

"She used to tell me about them a lot, how much she loved them and how beautiful they were, so this courtyard, in particular, really reminds me of my mother," Ney said.

She is one of the many Chinese American donors in the area who rallied together to raise millions of dollars to bring their rich heritage to a mainstream institution in Southern California.

The total cost of the garden was $54.6 million, which was contributed by individuals, corporations and foundations, particularly from Chinese and Chinese Americans in the region.

The garden's donor walls represent a broad range of the Chinese diaspora that transcends regional and political differences, including families from the Chinese mainland, entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Chinese American families who have been in the US for more than 150 years and migrants who relocated to the country 10 years ago.

"I think this might be the most successful and probably one of the first efforts where the Chinese communities really came out and were generous, philanthropic and donated to something that meant a great deal to them, as well as benefiting the community that they live in," Ney said.

"It was a wonderful thing to see that it was really supported by the Chinese community, and not just the American community, as most things at the Huntington are."

Visitors impressed

Liu Fang Yuan has been a hit with visitors since it opened in February 2008. Despite the pandemic, a steady stream of arrivals wearing face masks meandered through the mosaic pathway at the garden on a recent weekday morning.

Stevi Carroll, a retired teacher from Pasadena, who was photographing water lilies, said: "I have been thrilled to see how the Chinese garden has opened up. It is so beautiful, and as the seasons change, the flowers change. It's just magnificent."

Carroll has been a frequent visitor to the Huntington Library since moving to the area in 2004. She enjoys attending exhibitions it organizes to explore the cultural and spiritual meanings of the Chinese garden.

"When I first came here, there was just this park that was open. They had an exhibit in one of the galleries of scrolls that sort of explained that there was a path 'over there', it was zigzaggy and was made that way so that a person would have a different view depending on where he or she stood or sat," she said.

Carroll added that when she strolled around Liu Fang Yuan with her daughter on Sundays before the pandemic struck, artisans were working meticulously on the site.

"We watched a new building being constructed, and when it finally opened, I was so excited. I walked around it and love the way you can see things through the windows. The rocks are framed so beautifully," she said.

Joe Martinez, a 38-year-old television writer from Santa Clarita, California, said the Chinese garden evoked memories of a trip he took to Beijing in 2010.

"I was impressed, because I've been to Beijing, and it reminded me so much of that city. The amount of detail they have here is really impressive," he said.

Mike Mitchell, 41, a freelance media worker who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County, said he was greatly impressed the first time he visited the garden.

"I never imagined that I could walk in there and see such a sight in a neighborhood of San Marino. It's like going to another place entirely," he said.

Taylor Dwyer, a 26-year-old librarian, who had visited the garden several times, brought her mother along for a day out. They stopped to read the Chinese characters etched on a large rock in the courtyard.

"We love the different areas of the garden, but I was saying to my mom a few minutes ago that just walking in here feels like I'm in a storybook. It's just so beautiful, you feel as if you're being transported to a different place," Dwyer said.

When the pandemic ends, Bloom, the curator, hopes the garden's indoor programs will return, including an exhibition on calligraphy, in late spring or early summer next year.

He said the garden provides an enjoyable experience for people to gain an appreciation of Chinese culture.

"I think that in the future it will always be important for different cultures to try to understand each other, and to basically recognize that we are all human beings. We all appreciate plants, we all appreciate artworks. We might have a different sense of what makes a good painting or what makes a good garden, but fundamentally, these are all things that all humans do," Bloom said.

"With the Chinese garden, one of our goals is really to foster that sense of cross-cultural empathy. We have tended to focus a little bit more on the historical form of gardening, or the historical form of art, but I think it's a very good entry point to an appreciation of Chinese culture in general."