①Have you ever visited any traditional Chinese gardens? They look like more natural sights than some Western Gardens. They have a long history. As early as 1500, there were two main types of gardens: imperial gardens and private gardens. Imperial gardens were for the use of the emperor and his family. Private gardens were built by important officials or wealthy businessmen. Both types of gardens were built for hunting and resting.
②The Summer Palace in Beijing is China's most famous imperial garden. It covers about 3,000,000 m². Kunming Lake takes up almost three-fourths of the garden's total area. There are over 3,000 ancient buildings and more than 400,000 plants in the garden. You can also see more than 40,000 valuable works from each ancient period. With such a rich collection, the garden is known as the "Imperial Garden Museum."
③As for private gardens, the most famous one is the Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政园) in Suzhou. It has an area of only 41,000 m². It is quite small compared to imperial gardens, but it's beautiful. When you are standing in any corner of the garden, it all looks like a lifelike picture. And the whole garden looks different in different seasons.
④The traditional Chinese gardens have been designed (设计) to look naturally formed. Mountains and waters, trees and flowers, houses and towers are well-organized. They don't look crowded together at all. In fact, Chinese gardens are in some ways very much like traditional Chinese sight paintings. The two have influenced and developed alongside one another. Both of them show the importance of nature in Chinese culture.
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