China attractions - The Lingering Garden is located at the outer side of the Chang Gate of Suzhou city, China. It was built in 1593 by a retired imperial official Xu Taishi and called it the East Garden at that time. After he died, the Lingering Garden had been neglected for a very long time. In 1794, Liu Shu became the owner of it. His workers and servants spent four years to repair and renovate the garden. They planted many white pines and bamboo trees, which made the entire garden a "cold" appearance, so the locals called the East Garden as the "Cold Green Villa" (Hanbi Shanzhuang) or the Liu's Garden. Liu Shu loved calligraphy and odd stones very much. He carved many of his writings on the walls of the garden's corridors and collected a lot of strange-shaped stones. The odd, artificial hills carved with characters you can see today are by this great man !
The unrest and battles in 1860 set a big fire to the Suzhou city, but the Cold Green Garden survived the damage. In 1873 the garden was bought by Sheng Kang. Greatly repaired and expanded, Sheng changed its name to Liuyuan, the Lingering Garden, because Liu, the surname of the former master, is pronounced the same as the word "lingering" in Chinese. Since then, the Lingering Garden has been famous among classical gardens in China.
However, during the China's war years, the Liuyuan has been abandoned for so long. The Chinese government decided to rejuvenate to whole garden in 1953. In 1997, the Lingering Garden, together with the Humble Administrator, the Master of Net Gardens and Huanxiu Villa enlisted the UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage.
Today the Lingering Garden in Suzhou is having an area of 23,000 sq. m. Its architectural style is mainly from the Qing Dynasty of China. Diverse in scenery, majestic in rockwork and specious in buildings, the garden is an ideal for an urban retreat from crowded places.