Zuibaichi Park　醉白池

Zuibaichi Park, one of the top five gardens in Shanghai, is located in the ancient Songjiang Town. It began to be built in the 7th year during the reign of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty and initially was a private garden of Gu Dashen, a local gentleman. In the 9th year (1652) during the reign of Emperor Shunzhi, Gu passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi. Later on, he took power as a high official in the imperial court. As he was adept at calligraphy and painting, he was leading the Songjiang genre of painting. He named his garden by borrowing the idea from one of the poems by Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty. And he designed the garden, and personally supervised its construction. Exquisite in layout and lyrical in scenery, Zuibaici Garden is a classical among all the gardens in Shanghai, and also the only one that contains residential houses.

During the Anti-Japanese War, Zuibaichi was occupied by the Japanese invaders. The houses and pavilions in the garden were dismantled and changed into Japanese-style houses; worst of all, even a notorious comfort hall was set up in the garden. In 1956, the garden underwent a complete renovation and expansion westward with an additional 60 mu of land. The original site of the garden is in the east of the present park, which concentrates the best scenery. With the pond as the center, quite a number of exquisite and elegant halls, houses and pavilions with a long corridor were built around. Covering only one mu, the pond with fishes swimming in the clear and green waters is encircled with a bank of yellow stones. The Hall on the Pond, located on the north bank, was reconstructed in the 1st year (1909) during the reign of Emperor Xuantong. The horizontal board in the hall bears the inscription, Zui Bai Ci, by Cheng Shifa, a distinguished contemporary calligrapher and painter. The eight chairs of the Ming-Dynasty style in the hall are really rare for the gardens in this region. In front of the hall are towering trees, providing the building with a shade; in the rear is a cluster of osmanthus trees; outside the north window is a stretch of bamboos; and the pond water ripples underneath the house. On the east of the hall is another hall, the Zhujiashan Hall, with windows on all four sides; thus, it is called the Four-sided Hall. It is of the Ming-Dynasty style and it has an old camphor tree in its front. The tree is more than 300 years old, yet still so vigorously exuberant that its branches and leaves form a nice shade. Behind the hall, old vines cling to trees, producing a sense of old times. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, this hall used to be the place where the artists gathered, drinking wine and producing art works with their brushes. On the southeast of the hall there is a cluster of 100-year-old peonies, which are still thriving. And on the left of the hall are several 100-year-old glossy privet trees. The pavilions around the pond have elegant structures and fine carvings. The Large Pavilion on the southeast, the Small Pavilion on the northeast, and the Hexagonal Pavilion on the west are linked with each other by a long corridor. Sitting on the stool by the railing and watching the fishes swimming in the water, you could also enjoy the reflection of the houses, pavilions, and trees in it. On the south bank of the pond is a curved corridor. On the west of the Hall on the Pond is the Snow Hall, with a wall between them. This hall is so named because of the masses of plum blossoms. In the yard is a pool, which is rich in fragrant lotus flowers in summer time. On December 26, 1912, Dr. Sun Yatsen delivered a speech here. Right in front of this hall are two 2-meter-tall stone lions, which are the remains from the Ming Dynasty. On the east of the Four-sided Hall is the Baocheng Building, which is the dwelling place of the owners.

Zuibaichi Park has collected a fairly large number of carved tablets from various dynasties. The best known among them is the Bangyan Gallery of the Ming Dynasty, which consists of 30 tablets carved with 91 Songjiang celebrities of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Besides, there are tablets of the Three Kingdom Period, the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, Zuibaici is different from the gardens in Suzhou in that it is a typical scholastic garden rich in literary atmosphere. Similar to the Songjiang genre of painting, it has attained a high level in art.

Address: Zuibaichi Park No.64 South Renmin Road, Songjiang District, Shanghai

Open Hours: 8:00 - 17:00