Suzhou has a lot of nicknames such as Paradise on Earth, Venice of China, the city of silk, the land of rice & fish, the city of craft and folk art and so on, but there is one most famous nickname-the city of gardens. Nine gardens have been the listed world cultural heritage sites by UNSECO.

Undoubtedly, well educated and rich people built such fantastic gardens according to their own tastes in different dynasties. Most of them retired from senior officials, but some of them resigned from the high ranking positions because of wrong-doings.

Each classcial garden of Suzhou was built for family living, consisting of living area, back garden and farm field. Family members slept, ate and received guests in the living area, enjoyed their leisurely time in the garden area. They hired servants to raise vegetable, chicken or duck to support their daily life in Farm field.

Suzhou has never been destroyed by the war or natural disaster, so natural and human resources are very rich. What's more, local people would like to spend much more time with their families after work and pay more attentation to their children’s education, which is the main reason why there were so many talented scholars in Suzhou in any dynasty.

Small lakes, stones, trees and buildings are common used to create artificial nature in the gardens. They are called four basic elements of the gardens. Stones look like bones in human's bodies and water likes the blood.

We must miss the gardens when we pass through them because they look small at the first sight, but it seems like bigger when we enter inside comparatively. This is the hidden view of the gardens. Borrowed and windowed views are other two technique art of the gardens.  

Family members could enjoy natural beauties in each season without leaving the gardens. Typically, they plant different trees standing for each season. Blooming wisteria means spring while lotus flowers in the pond stand for summer and autumn is coming when gingko trees turn yellow and blooming plum means winter.

Usually, one garden had changed a lot of hands, so each Garden had its own history. Anyway, they all decided to settle down in Suzhou and chase for their peaceful life far away from the battle outside of the garden.

Take Lingering Garden as an example. The second owner of the garden liked the stones very much, so he collected and decorated the garden with 12 famous rocks from all over China, which made the garden more vivid and more meaningful.

The patterns of the pavement are beautiful and meaningful. The crane is a symbol of longevity and a lotus flower means the noble and beauty. Golden fish means freedom and treasure. Phoenix equals to dragon in China, so it will show us auspicious omens with peace and good luck if phoenix intertwines dragon.

The owner of Lingering Garden built the corridor inside the garden. Visitors could walk around the garden conveniently without umbrella in the rainy days.