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Is the 'Yan Garden' in Changshu, a tiny garden, worth the 10 yuan ticket price?

Located in the old town of Changshu (18 Xinfeng Lane), next to Yushan Jinjiang Hotel, there is a Qing Dynasty ancient garden called Yan Garden, which has a history of more than two hundred years. Yan Garden covers an area of four acres, with closely packed scenery, which can be described as a snail shell doing a dojo. Although there are so-called sixteen famous scenes such as Yan Valley Cave Heaven and Three Chanjuan Rooms, it seems to be frivolous of ancient literati. In my opinion, Yan Garden is just like a general ancient garden in the south of the Yangtze River. For this tiny area of 4 acres, there is actually no outstanding place to circle and point out. How can it be listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit? I speculate that one is the participation of Ge Yuliang, the master of overlapping mountains in the Qianjia era in the south of the Yangtze River: in Yan Garden, he used a small amount of stones to highly refine the peaks and caves in natural landscapes in a very limited space, achieving the 'cliffs and greenery, reflecting pool water, deep mountains and secluded valleys, as if they were naturally formed'. No wonder the folk call Ge Yuliang has the magic of 'a few feet of landscape, city mountains and forests'; the second is the long history of the garden: Yan Garden, built in the Qianlong (1780) period, has a garden history of more than 240 years. The third is the heavy cultural and historical background of the garden owner: the garden was originally built by Jiang Yuanshu, the son of Jiang Pu, the Grand Scholar of the East Pavilion of the Qing Dynasty Qianlong, and the governor of Taiwan, who had a great influence in Changshu. It is reported that there are four ancient gardens in Changshu, Fangta Garden, Yan Garden, Zeng Garden and Zhao Garden (merged). Starting this year, Fangta Garden, Zeng Garden and Zhao Garden have all reduced their ticket prices to 30 yuan, benefiting the people and allowing more citizens to enjoy the garden. But only Yan Garden (the past ticket price was 40 yuan) still charges 10 yuan. In terms of garden area, scenery and landscape, Yan Garden is far inferior to the first three, and can only rank last. In fact, it takes about a quarter of an hour to walk around the entire Yan Garden, and there is nothing particularly eye-catching. The number of visitors entering the garden in a day can be counted on one's fingers, and this 10 yuan ticket is really out of tune. It seems that it is this 'national key cultural relics protection unit' that gives it a full charge. However, tourists do not buy this account. Looking at the four major ancient gardens in Changshu, the free Zeng Garden, Zhao Garden, and Fangta Garden are crowded with visitors, while Yan Garden is sparsely populated, which can be described as 'the door can be described as sparsely populated'. Those of you who have visited Yan Garden, do you feel the same?
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*Created by local travelers and translated by TripGenie.
Posted: Feb 19, 2024
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