Forming a Forever Friendship: The Dunedin’s Chinese Garden
Posted: Tuesday Jan 22, 2019
4th place winner of A Distant Longing: Dunedin Chinese Garden Student Essay Competition
The Dunedin’s Chinese Garden is located in the centre of the city, next to the historic railway station and the famous Otago Settlers' Museum. The garden is centred on a large lake, with the surroundings of an entrance hall, a square pavilion, a study, a climbing mountain, a tea house, and a two-storey tower block. A zig-zag bridge crosses the lake and connects two sides. The hand-made wooden buildings, tiles, bricks, and hand-finished granite paving stones features the garden with full Chinese customs. So do the elaborate Pai Lou archway made for the garden specially.
As opened in September in 2008, this year is the decennial of the Dunedin’s Chinese garden. To carry forward the cherish experiences of building a Chinese garden abroad and concreting friendships between countries, it’s just the right time to review the history and achievements of the garden.
It’s the Dunedin Chinese Garden that brings together the spirit of Dunedin Chinese. On one hand, the local Chinese helped the garden. The Dunedin Chinese Garden was first proposed at the time of the city's 150th anniversary commemorations in 1998. After that, with the development of the Chinese traditional Yuanlin concept, the Chinese community established the Dunedin Chinese Gardens Trust. The local Chinese played a positive role in donating for the cost of the construction project. On the other hand, the garden serves for the local Chinese too. It tries to create a permanent recognition of the Chinese people who first came to Otago during the 1860s gold rush because they stayed and contributed to the city to some extent. In other words, Chinese have made strong influence on Otago history. Even today, the involvement of the Chinese population has been being an important factor in developing the city and the New Zealand.
It’s the Dunedin Chinese Garden that promotes the sister-city relationship between Dunedin and Shanghai. Dunedin and Shanghai established sister-city relationship in 1994, when they began to cooperate in many fields. The Dunedin Chinese Garden was created with the support of the Dunedin City Council and the Shanghai Municipal Government. Dunedin gifted the land to the Chinese Gardens Trust, and supported NZ$3.75 million to the project, while the Shanghai released architects who are expert in Chinese traditional Yuanlin construction and protection. When the garden almost completed, Shanghai also gave a couple of stone lion statues as a gift to wish the garden and the city peace and prosperity. The relationship between two cities was renewed in September 2008 when the Dunedin Chinese Garden officially opened to the public.
It’s the Dunedin Chinese Garden that attracts tourists to enjoy and helps convey Chinese traditional culture in the other side of the globe. There are only a few authentic Chinese Gardens outside China, while the Dunedin’s Chinese garden is the first in the southern hemisphere. As introduced above, the garden is an authentic Chinese garden, which means it was built by Chinese builders and artisans and in Chinese ways. Experts from Shanghai together with those New Zealanders who are familiar with Chinese culture designed and supervised the Dunedin Chinese Garden, which cost them about 8 years to ensure authenticity, cultural accuracy and practical functionality. They chose Jiangnan Yuanlin style for the garden, not only because it’s the apogee of Chinese traditional Yuanlin Style, but also because it’s suitable for small sites in urban settings. Besides, main materials sourced from China and ancient techniques used have made the Dunedin’s Chinese garden exactly in the Chinese traditional Jiangnan Yuanlin style. The garden pursues the aesthetic realm that “Done by man, as if since it is made”. Undoubtedly, the Garden full of unique Chinese fascination causes cultural exchanges between eastern and western cultures; it enables foreigners to experience Chinese traditions at home; it attracts tourists all through the country and the world.
From ancient times to the present, the construction of the Dunedin’s Chinese garden concretes the friendship between two cities and two countries and helps create more opportunities of win-win cooperation. For both, the garden is a catalyst for more cooperation in tourism, business, education and culture dissemination. More for Chinese, the garden is a home in the distance. Chinese contemporary poet Haizi has said "nothing but remoteness in the distance”, but now the Dunedin Chinese Garden becomes a significant symbol of Chinese culture in New Zealand, changing the “remoteness”. That’s why I think the Dunedin Chinese Garden has been forming the forever friendship.