Dunedin's Oriental Oasis

Long recognised for its Victorian and Edwardian architecture and marine wildlife, Dunedin has a new attraction to pique the interest of tourists and locals: a Chinese Scholar’s Garden.

 

 

Chinese immigrants arrived in Dunedin shortly after the city was founded, lured by the 1860s gold rush, and have contributed substantially to the city ever since. The idea for the $7.5m attraction came from the local Chinese community in 1997 to mark the city’s 150th birthday.

 

The concept of the Scholar’s Garden dates back 2000 years. Influential men of the day built enclosed private gardens as places of refuge from the pressures of work – somewhere beautiful to calm the spirit and put them in touch with their ancient culture.

 

Most of the Dunedin garden, including 970 tonnes of rock and 380,000 handmade tiles, was transported from China in ninety-nine containers. The finely sculpted wooden pavilions were built first in Shanghai, then dismantled and shipped. Sixty-three skilled craftsmen then spent six months in Dunedin creating the garden. 

 

Everything was assembled using the ancient mortise and tenon method of securing joints without nails or glue.

 

This striking gift to the city, named Lan Yuan (Orchid Garden), is the only complete, authentic Chinese Scholar’s Garden in the southern hemisphere. (An earlier version of a Chinese Scholar’s Garden can be seen in Hamilton Gardens, in the Paradise Garden Collection.)

 

The Chinese garden is regarded as living art and is closely related to Chinese landscape painting. Both try to capture a natural landscape’s essence using wood, rock and water. The structures within its walls are placed to produce lines that twist and turn and rise and fall, creating a series of distinctly different vistas.

 

Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Professor Cao Yong Kang designed the Dunedin model, which extends over 3000 square metres. Inside its white walls, a wasteland has been transformed into an oasis of beauty and tranquillity.

 

Professor Cao smiles as he surveys the result of his hard work. “It will be a true garden when the bamboo grows and the lotus is on the pond,” he says. 

 

Bamboo and lotus are of particular significance to the Chinese. Lotus represents rising successfully from hardship (emerging from the mud unsoiled) and bamboo is said to represent refinement.

 

“You can live without meat, but without bamboo you become less respectable,” says Professor Cao.
Willow, apple and cherry blossom, magnolia, pine and maple are usually associated with Chinese gardens. 

 

They all feature here, along with ninety other varieties of shrubs, trees and flowers, all of which took eighteen months to source.

 

Local landscape architect Mick Field was responsible for supervising the planting. “I’ve had many sleepless nights,” he says. “There’s a high water table so some plants may drown. I’ll have to see what happens, then we may have to replace some with plants that like wet feet.”

 

Lotus will be introduced in the summer, along with banana plants. When I ask a Chinese visitor to the garden why banana plants might be considered a suitable choice, the response is simple: “They make pleasing sounds when the wind blows.” 

 

The Dunedin garden will improve with age but, even in this pristine state, the spirit and magic these gardens are designed to create is evident.

 

Located just a stone’s throw from Dunedin’s historic railway station and adjacent to the Otago Settlers Museum, the garden signals its presence through the colourful P’ai Lau or memorial entrance – a promise of something special to come.

 

Beyond the walls, the spire of First Church of Otago, a legacy of Dunedin’s Scottish Presbyterians, soars skywards. It’s a unique juxtaposition of symbols of two vastly different cultures.

 

Inside the garden compound there are beautiful views with every step. Look one way and the central pavilion’s curving roof is reflected in the pond’s milky green water. Turn slightly and the vista changes: a rocky mound has myriad surfaces reflecting the sunlight and a waterfall trickling down one side.

 

Little caves tempt the visitor inside. An arching bridge invites exploration of hidden corners. On a gracefully curving roof beam, a rising phoenix keeps away bad spirits.

 

A few steps along an attractive pathway, I stop and stare at a double-storeyed pavilion with a bank of small windows in finely carved frames. Another narrow walkway stretches away from me across the pond and I marvel that this garden, designed to court and calm the spirit, does its work so well. I feel rejuvenated and at peace.

 

As the 15th century Chinese garden designer Ji Ching said, “A garden is created by the human hand, but it should appear as if created by heaven.”