The annual  Shanghai   Yuyuan Lantern Festival takes place at Yu Garden (yuan means "garden" here, while the translation of "Yu" will appear farther below). The Lantern Festival is the finale that closes out the Chinese Lunar New Year, aka Spring Festival, which currently begins in early February and runs for 15 days (for 2011, the Spring Festival in China begins on February 3^rd and runs through February 18^th, the latter date being the celebration of the Lantern Festival this year).

 

Yu Garden is located in the heart of Shanghai's Huangpu District near the western bank of the Huangpu River. More specifically, Yu Garden is situated on the opposite corner from the Ancient City Park at the intersection of Anren Road and Fuyou Road (the park lies northeast of the intersection while the garden lies southwest of it). Yu Garden is an urbane version of the classical scholar garden of the type made famous in the provincial city of Suzhou ,  Anhui   Province. That is, the garden takes an artificial lake (a pond) as its central theme and constructs buildings (dwellings, pavilions, etc.) and artificial mountains (jia shan, called a "rockery" in English, or stones deftly stacked up so as to imitate mountain peaks and cliffs) around the artificial lake, with walkways that often cross a manmade stream, generally via a stone arch bridge, and which connect all of the various parts, and with the strategic placement of shrubs and trees such that they deliberately inhibit a comprehensive view of the garden (there can be multiple paths leading to the same specific spot, each approach presenting its particular perspective, which can be quite confusing).

 

The result is that the garden generally appears larger than it actually is, and it also presents itself as an enigma, since the senses are constantly put to the test of fathoming the actual proportions and layout of the garden on the basis of the series of partial views – and differing views, even for the same spot – that a stroll through the garden offers, and which the mind must then piece together (think of the labyrinthine layout of the scriptorium in the film, The Name of the Rose, though the layout of a scholar garden is hardly as perplexing as that of the scriptorium that the good monk, William of Baskerville (Sean Connery), and his young apprentice, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater), had to contend with at the deceptive, 14th-century Benedictine monastery in northern Italy that was at the heart of this captivating tale written by the Italian philosopher, semiotician (semiotics is the meta-level study of language to which, among other disciplines, semantics, belongs), literary critic, novelist and all-around scholar, Umberto Eco.

 

 

Yu Garden was built by a provincial administrator from  Sichuan   Province, Pan Yunduan, for the sake of his parents who lived in Shanghai. It took many years to complete the garden, which was a thus a work in progress because Pan Yunduan wished to build a first-rate garden and that set limits on how fast he could build (public officials in Imperial China did not generally earn a high salary unless they were corrupt; in fact, honest administrators were forced to supplement their income by other means – as scribes, as illustrators of manuscripts, etc.). Eventually, perhaps after the demise of his parents, Pan was forced to sell his garden, which he had named Yu ("Pleasing One's Parents") and which was begun in 1559 but was still not complete twenty years later when Pan sold it in 1579 to a group of  Shanghai  businessmen (note that many of Suzhou's scholar gardens were built by successful businessmen, though some, like Pan's Yu Garden, were built by government administrators).

 

The garden changed hands frequently thereafter, becoming attached briefly to a temple as a special residence, West Garden, then was purchased by a craftsman's guild before becoming home to the Society of Small Swords, a subversive political-military organisation that was active in the 1850s and helped to brew the Taipeng Rebellion (1850-64), a complex of circumstances that would bode ill for the garden, since it suffered damage at the hands of the French as part of the religious and trade disputes that were going on between China and eight foreign powers at the time, including France (the Qing government – and, indeed, the bulk of Buddhist Chinese society – resisted the invasion of foreign traders as vehemently as they resisted the influx of Christian missionaries).

 

Odd as it seems, the Qing government made an alliance with the French and the British to put down the Taipeng Rebellion, which the emperor feared more than he feared the foreigners, though the French seem to have interpreted their mandate more broadly than the Qing government intended, for they also attacked the Imperial Palace in Beijing , burning it down and carting off untold quantities of Chinese patrimony (including some of the most priceless gems, goblets and other works of art ever seen) and incurring the wrath of one of France's – and Europe's – greatest authors and moralists, Victor Hugo, who labelled his countrymen as plain thieves for their role in this ignominious affair).

 

Thereafter the garden fell into disrepair and was forgotten in the continued civil strife in China that saw not one but two revolutions: a revolution that replaced the feudal system of rule with that of a republic, the Republic of China (1912-49), then a workers' revolution (aka, the War of Liberation) which saw the rise of the People's Republic of China that emerged as the victor, where the loser (the so-called Nationalist forces) fled to Taiwan . After the rise of the PRC, the government of  Shanghai  took control of the derelict garden and slowly began to rebuild it. It was finally entirely redone in an opulent Qing style that is more urbane, or less provincial, than the classical scholar garden of Suzhou. Yu Garden was reopened under its original name, this time for the benefit of the general public, in 1987.

 

 

Besides the central pond, Yu Garden is made up of six sections, each section a study in elegance and oriental ambience in itself and consisting of various elements (there are some 30 halls and pavilions assembled here):

 

1- Sansui ("Bountiful Harvest") Tang ("Hall") with Da Jia Shan ("Grand Rockery") – note that sansui literally means "three spikes", where the spikes in question refer to the grain-pods (spikes, consisting of spikelets) that form the head of, for example, the wheat stalk. The head generally consists of 1-3 spikes, where 3 spikes promises a bountiful harvest. Hence, Sansui Tang is best translated as "Bountiful Harvest Hall". See the definition of jia shan in the introduction above.

 

2- Wanhua ("Priceless") Lou ("Chamber") – note that wanhua literally means "million spent", or "zillion spent", i.e., an incomprehensibly large number, or price, paid, therefore Wanhua Lou can best be translated as "Priceless Chamber".

 

3- Dianchun ("Fountain Head") Tang ("Hall") – note that the literal name here is also a metaphor for "bountiful", or "horn of plenty".

 

4- Huijing ("See the Scenery") Tang ("Hall") – note that since Huijing Tang sits in the center of the garden, the vantage point from the hall's upper deck offers a panoramic view of Yu Garden.

 

5- Yuhua ("Jade Magnificence") Tang ("Hall") – or "Hall of Jade Magnificence", a fanciful title – but not forbidden, eh?

 

6- Nei Hua Yuan ("Garden Within a Garden") – this phenomenon is but one example of the delightfully self-reflective side of the Chinese scholar garden. Many such gardens comprise mini versions of other famous gardens as well as mini versions of famous national and international landmarks (think: the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, etc.). Here, the miniature garden within the main garden is simply a miniature garden, not a mini version of a famous garden found elswhere (such as in Suzhou). That said, the miniature garden is always a delight to behold, for it possesses all of the elements that belong to the main garden: the pond, the walkways and bridges, the halls, the pavilions, the trees (surely bonsai versions!), etc.

 

Each section of the garden is separated by a "roofed" white brick wall that is decorated above with dragons. Yet, in spite of the partitioning, the garden rests in balance, achieving an organic harmony among its various parts seemingly effortlessly, which is of course precisely the magic of the scholar garden!

 

At the heart of Yu Garden lies the lotus pond with a wooden, zigzag bridge (a boardwalk, in fact) stretching across it. There are nine "zigs and zags" (angled turns) in the bridge to symbolize the emperor, since the digit 9 is the supreme, or largest digit (noting that all numbers are composed of the digits 0 to 9). At the center of the bridge is situated a large pavilion called Hu Xin Ting ("Pavilion in the Center of the Lake"). Before the garden was damaged in the middle of the 19^th century, this pavilion was rebuilt and made into a teahouse. The conversion of the pavilion into a teahouse occurred in 1784, and the teahouse in the center of the pond at Yu Garden became one of the highlights of Shanghai.

 

Since the garden's reopening, the pavilion, which has again become a teahouse – in fact, a teahouse in the traditional style (you will not find Coca-Cola or chilled lattes here! – can boast visits from such famous personnages as the former U.S. President, Bill Clinton, and the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

 

 

Yu Garden comes alive during the annual Lantern Festival, with lit lanterns in all colors, sizes and shapes hanging from every imaginable – and unimaginable – perch. The main theme of the decorations on the lanterns of the Lantern Festival, as part of the larger Lunar New Year Festival, is always the zodiac animal that belongs to that particular year. The zodiac animal for this year, 2011, is the rabbit. If Valentine's Day falls within the Chinese Lunar New Year Festival – which it sometimes does – then themes of love can adorn the lanterns as well. The organizers of the annual Lantern Festival, as it will be celebratted all across the country, do not simply depict the zodiac animal in question, but must also create a situation in which the zodiac animal in question interacts in a way that is beneficial for Chinese society.

 

Some zodiac animals are easier to work with than others. For example, the ox, the horse and the tiger – and perhaps the goat – are substantial enough to be made into huge, fixed (not hanging) lanterns that adorn rooftops and can be of a size that rivals the motorized floats of the New Year's Day Parade in New York City.  

 

The artistic creation and decoration of Chinese Lunar New Year lanterns, the official themes aside, is left to the imagination, and is truly a communal experience which, in its small way, rivals the communal effort to produce the elaborate dance costumes seen at the annual Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. It is for example common to create a puzzle on the lantern that invites the viewer to solve it. This is a dimension of the Lantern Festival that the Chinese people are particularly fond of, with the entire family joining in to try and solve the various puzzles.

 

Equally, the participation of merrymakers on the streets during the Lantern Festival can be almost as lively as the merry crowds that rule the streets of Rio during the Carnival. The crowds that flock to Yu Garden are said to be so large some years that it is difficult not to step on the toes (literally) of a fellow merrymaker, or to avoid having one's own toes stepped on, so packed and so lively can the crowds be (during the course of the Lantern Festival, upwards of 10,000 people, though not all at once, of course, can pass through the garden in a single day).

 

The food that is synomymous with the Lantern Festival is yuanxiao, or "rice balls", whose shells are made of glutinous rice and whose filling can be either sweet or salty. The name derives from the Lantern Festival itself...

 

The first lunar month is called the month of "yuan", while the night of the Lantern Festival, the night following the 15^th day of the month of "yuan" – which coincides with the night of the full moon (this is why it is called the lunar calendar!) – is called the night of "xiao", hence the name of the rice balls copiously consumed during the Lantern Festival.

 

The sweeet filling of Yuanxiao ("rice balls") is made of sugar combined with several of the following ingredients: soyabean paste, Chinese date (Ziziphus jujube) paste, sesame paste, tangerine peel, osmanthus flowers, rose petals and walnuts. The salty filling of Yuanxiao is made with a mixture of minced meats and vegetables, seasoned with salt, pepper and other spices.

 

 

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The annual Lantern Festival harks back many years, from the time that the pavilion in the center of the "lake" was made into a teahouse. The celebrations understandably waned during the troubled years of transition from feudal rule to the emergence of the Republic of China, and again when the internal strife between the Kuomintang (Nationalists forces) and the Communists shook the country, and although a tenuous peace was established between these two parties during the common effort against the Japanese invaders of the WWII (1939-45)/ Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) era, the occupation of China by Japan effectively put an end to the Lantern Festival across occupied China, including in Shanghai.

 

In 1979, the government of  Shanghai  decided to revive the Lantern Festival at Yu Garden even though the garden hadn't yet been completely rebuilt and was not otherwise open to the public. Since then, the Lantern Festival has continued to grow, with participation during some years naturally being greater than in other years. In recent years, the festival has expanded to such a degree that the garden and its immediate environs can no longer cope with the crowds, therefore neighboring streets (Lishui Road, Fuyou Road and  Shanghai  Lao Jie, or  Shanghai  Old Street) have been incorporated into the festival, so as to reduce the pressure somewhat on Yu Garden, though the hardcore Lantern Festival revelers of  Shanghai  will accept no subsitute for the real thing when it comes to Yu Garden (go here to learn more about the Chinese Lantern Festival).

 

The Lantern Festival that closes out the Chinese Lunar New Year is reminiscent of the extravagant outdoor Christmas lighting in the U.S. (though not quite as overdone as the latter), it is reminiscent, in parts and in places, of the motorized floats of a New Year's Day Parade in New York City, and it is reminiscent of the creativity and spontaneity of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Nowhere does all of these strands more lavishly come together than at the Lantern Festival held each year at Yu Garden in  Shanghai  Old Town. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that Lonely Planet mentioned Yu Garden's Lantern Festival among its 2010 list of the World's Best Festivals.

 

 

 

 

 

The Chinese Lunar New Year runs from the 1^st day through the 15^th day of the first lunar month, or from February 3^rd – 18^th for the year of 2011. The Lantern Festival is the finale that closes out the Lunar New Year celebrations, and thus takes place on the 15^th day of the first lunar month, or on February 18^th this year. The zodiac animal that symbolizes the Lunar New Year Festival this year – and which will be the main theme of the Lantern Festival – is the rabbit.

 

 

 

 

Yu Garden is part of the Yuyuan Tourism Mall located at 218 Anren Road, Old Town, Huangpu District in Shanghai, which in turn is situated at the intersection of Anren Road and Fuyou Road on the opposite corner from the Ancient City Park (the park is situated northeast of the intersection in question; the garden, southeast of it).