Suzhou Things to Do

The Master of the Nets Garden is among the finest gardens in China and is recognized with nine other Suzhou gardens as United Nations World Heritage sites. The initial garden was first constructed over 800 years ago and the Master of the Nets is particularly regarded among garden connoisseurs for its mastering the techniques of relative dimension, contrast, foil, sequence and depth, and borrowed scenery.

The garden has an area of 0.6 hectare consisting of both gardens and a residential area: the entrance hall, the sedan-chair hall, the major hall, a two story Hall of Captured Grace and a back yard. In the garden of the western part there is a limped central pond surrounded by pavilions and towers adorned with sturdy rocks, trees, and flowering shrubs. These represent sceneries from several seasons. In the west most part is a court with the Peony Cottage study rooms offering exquisite views, which have been used to model the “Ming Hall” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This Ming Hall is used in creating an area of display for Ming Dynasty artifacts.

The Master of the Nets garden was first constructed in 1140 AD and was then named the Fisherman’s Retreat (Yuyin). The garden fell into disarray until six centuries later it was restored by Song Zongyuan. He drastically redesigned the garden and added multiple buildings, but retained the humble spirit of the site when renaming it the Master of the Nets.

We attended a ceremony in the evening here. Each room treated us to a different type of Chinese performance - musical, operatic, comedy etc. It was just fantastic. The whole garden was lit up with fairy lights which made the trees and ponds look just magical.