One Afternoon In China (Chinese Garden)

Member Name: MALU

Product:	Chinese Garden
Date:	19/05/02 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nearer than the real thing

Disadvantages: quite a distance for you, though

or: THE GARDEN OF THE REGAINED MOON

So you want to go to Berlin? Good idea! If you’ve got only two or three days, go and see the sights described in your guide book. Sights aren’t famous for nothing! Don’t complain about other tourists, though, they have the same rights as you have, what do you think YOU are when you leave your home and garden?

If you’ve got more time or have been to Berlin before and can honestly say that you’ve got a feeling for the city and have understood its pecularities of which there are quite a lot given its history, then I’ve got something for you, off the trodden path: the largest Chinese garden in Europe.

The initiator of the project is Good Man Manfred Durniok, a German film producer and great friend of China and the Chinese, honorary citizen of Beijing, one of Berlin’s sister cities.

Durniok first wanted to have the garden built in the Tiergarten, a large park near the Reichstag in then West Berlin, after the fall of the wall, however, he knew at once that it had to be built in the East. Praised be he for his change of mind! The Tiergarten is already attractive and is surrounded by attractions, whereas the second choice is in an area which is ‘dead trousers’ attraction-wise, as we say in German, meaning nothing is stirring.

The new site is in Marzahn (stress on the second syllable), a so-called satellite city in the east; when you travel there by S-Bahn, you need 50 minutes from the centre of Berlin.

Marzahn looks back on a history of 700 years as a village, some old houses and a windmill can still be seen, they now look like toy buildings from Legoland, because after the period of 1975 to 1985 Marzahn has become the synonym for a ‘Platte’ (prefabricated high rise buildings, some up to 23 storeys high, the majority ‘only‘ 10 to 12 storeys high, about 100 m long) in gigantomaniac dimensions. Marzahn covers
3157 ha, has approximately 140 000 inhabitants, together with the neighbouring Hellersdorf, 125 000 inhabitants, looking more or less the same, it’s the largest modern estate building site in Europe.

The inhabitants are a mixture of former top officials of the late GDR (German Democratic Republic) who came from all over the country and were happy to get a modern flat near the centre of their capital (Berlin was the capital of the GDR, the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany was Bonn) and people transferred from their inner city flats in Berlin because their houses were becoming dilapidated and ramshackle and it was the policy of the GDR to built new houses rather than repair the old ones.

Today some trendy West Berliners have discovered life in the ‘Platte’, too, because the rents are quite low.

In 1987 on the occasion of Berlin’s 750th anniversary a park for rest and recreation (Erholungspark) was built in Marzahn. When you arrive at Marzahn S-Bahn (tube) station, you take Bus 195 or 191 which takes you directly to the entrance of the park, there you pay for a ticket (1,50 Euro = around 80p) which allows you to roam freely (the park is open daily from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.), the Chinese Garden is only a small part of it, you don’t have to pay an extra fee there.

The Chinese Garden lies beside a 100m high hill made of rubble from the building sites and covers 2,7 ha including an artificial lake. What do these figures mean? You need 5 minutes when you jog, 15 minutes when you walk through it and one hour when you follow a guide along the zig-zag paths, look at the stone boat with the name ‘Look To The Moon’ lying in the lake, peep into the different pagodas and study the furniture listening to his explanations which I did so that I can tell you some details now.

The garden was planned by the Institute for Classic Landscape Gardening in Beijing in the style of a classical North
Chinese ‘Garden for Scholars’, 20 Chinese landscape gardeners were sent to Berlin for six years to realise the project, the official opening ceremony took place on October 15th, 2000. The material needed for the garden, marble, limestone, rocks and various kinds of wood, were packed into 20 containers and shipped to Berlin. The trees and plants come from Germany, but are all to be found in the Chinese flora as well.

When planning the garden the people in charge didn’t forget the habits of good and bad spirits, all doors can only be reached over some steps and all passages are slightly elevated, bad spirits don’t enter that way (in case you didn’t know). The teahouse with the name ‘The Mountain Lodge Of The Osmanthus Sap’ (built in China, taken to pieces there, put into containers, shipped to Berlin and rebuilt) lies at the foot of the hill which is a good thing, too, because dragons and good spirits dwell on mountains and hill tops.

I took a photo which puzzles the people I show it to. It shows a wall with an opening, so it was obviously taken from inside a pagoda. The opening is surrounded by a wooden frame and what we see inside the frame is...well, what is it? It is a part of the garden with a part of a roof of a different pagoda fitting so perfectly into the frame that the whole thing looks like a picture. Nothing in the garden is there by chance, everything has been thoroughly thought through, all angles have been calculated and the result is a feeling of natural harmony! I have no problems seeing landscape gardening as an art form.

The name ‘Garden Of The Regained Moon’ was chosen by the Chinese, the moon being a symbol of love, harmony, friendship and happiness, ‘regained’ as an allusion to the reunited Germany.

Although approximately 10 000 people of Chinese origin live in Berlin, no ‘Chinatown’ exists. Not only they are happy about the garden,
up to now more than 200 000 people have been there, many of whom are from the area, of course, who’ve returned many times.

After the guided tour I had a cup of tea sitting on the terrace of the teahouse overlooking the garden, the lake and a curved stone bridge; the menu offers dozens of varieties, all come without sugar, however, so if you’ve got a sweet tooth, bring some with you. The teahouse is run by a Chinese landscape designer, on request she introduces the Chinese art of tea, a ceremony lasting for about an hour. The teahouse can also be rented for festivities, several weddings have already been celebrated there.

Will I go back? Certainly, and for two reasons. I was there last year in June - late spring, early summer - everything was lush green, the flowers in full bloom. What does the garden look like in other seasons? In autumn when the leaves shine in all colours? Or in winter? I’d like to know.

But then there’s something else, the people in Marzahn have been so positively touched by the Chinese garden that they’ve begun to built a Japanese one nearby which is to be finished next year and they’re already dreaming of an Arabic one like the ones in Andalusia, Spain. I must have a look!

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