Editing Chinese culture (section)

=== Chinese garden ===
{{Main|Chinese garden}}
[[File:Jichang Yuan.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|[[Jichang Garden]] in [[Wuxi]] (1506–1521), built during the Ming dynasty, is an exemplary work of South Chinese style garden.]]
The Chinese garden is a landscape garden style which has evolved over the years.<ref>Michel Baridon, ''Les Jardins - paysagistes, jardiners, poḕts''.  p. 348</ref> It includes both the vast gardens of the [[Emperor of China|Chinese emperors]] and members of the imperial family, built for pleasure and to impress, and the more intimate gardens created by scholars, poets, former government officials, soldiers and merchants, made for reflection and escape from the outside world. They create an idealized miniature landscape, which is meant to express the harmony that should exist between man and nature.<ref name="Michel Baridon p. 348"/> A typical Chinese garden is enclosed by walls and includes one or more ponds, rock works, trees and flowers, and an assortment of halls and pavilions within the garden, connected by winding paths and zig-zag galleries. By moving from structure to structure, visitors can view a series of carefully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape paintings. The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the [[Yellow River]], during the [[Shang dynasty]] (1600–1046 BC). These gardens were large enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden, ''you'', ''pu'' and ''yuan''.  ''You'' was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while pu was a garden for plants. During the [[Qin dynasty]] (221–206 BC), ''[[wikt:園|yuan]]'' became the character for all gardens.<ref>Feng Chaoxiong, ''The Classical Gardens of Suzhou'', preface, and Bing Chiu, ''Jardins de Chine, ou la quete du paradis'', Editions de La Martiniere, Paris 2010, p. 10–11.</ref>

[[File:Yellow Register Archives of the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing (flickr 1559896574).jpg|thumb|left|A [[Moon gate]] in a Chinese garden]]

The old character for  ''yuan'' is a small picture of a garden; it is enclosed in a square which can represent a wall, and has symbols which can represent the plan of a structure, a small square which can represent a pond, and a symbol for a plantation or a pomegranate tree.<ref>Tong Jun, Records of Jiang Gardens, cited in Feng Chanoxiong, ''The Classical Gardens of Suzhou''.</ref> According to the ''Shiji'', one of the most famous features of this garden was the ''Wine Pool and Meat Forest'' (酒池肉林). A large pool, big enough for several small boats, was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the sea shores. The pool was then filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, which had skewers of roasted meat hanging from their branches. King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating the roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence and bad taste.<ref name=Che>Che Bing Chiu, "Jardins de Chine, ou la quete du paradis"</ref>{{rp|11}} During the [[Spring and Autumn period]] (722–481 BC), in 535 BC, the ''Terrace of Shanghua'', with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by [[King Jing of Zhou (Gui)|King Jing]] of the [[Zhou dynasty]]. In 505 BC, an even more elaborate garden, the ''Terrace of Gusu'', was begun. It was located on the side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, along with a lake where boats in the form of blue dragons navigated. From the highest terrace, a view extended as far as [[Lake Tai]], the Great Lake.<ref name=Che/>{{rp|12}}