A DAY OF HARMONY AT THE LAN SU CHINESE GARDENS

When Portland officially became a city in 1851, encouraged by a burgeoning shipping industry, it’s original core was the area now known as Old Town.  With the the new city’s need of labor, Chinese and Japanese immigrants found a place to establish roots, a place of refuge. Old Town also became known as Chinatown.  It is now a neighborhood of bustling night time entertainment. During the weekends it is alive with Saturday Market and Voodoo Doughnuts. In my case, finding refuge was at the corner of N.W. Everett Street and 3rd Avenue. Nestled here into one square city block of downtown Portland is the Lan Su Chinese Garden.  You leave all notion of bustling behind as soon as you enter the gates of the Lan Su.

The Garden was built and completed in 2000 as a collaboration between Portland and Suzhou, Portland’s sister city in China.  Everything was imported from China, including the sixty-five artisans who lived ten months in Portland while they assembled and completed the structures that were crafted in China.   All the rocks, for example, acquiring their shape from their long life under waterways in China, were imported. That made 500 tons of them.

 

The city gardens found in China in the sixteenth century were pockets of retreat. They served as a haven from the busy, at times chaotic energy that surrounds you in a city.  They brought the Tao, living in harmony with the natural world, into your daily life.  I think everyone at Lan Su the day I visited was on the same page of “tranquility and harmony”.  Added, too, was a lot of good energy.   Curiously, while there, I was not aware of the many city buildings that are so obvious in my photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

Portland can be at it’s best in the Fall.  This particular day was beautifully bright with soft air.  That’s not always the case in the city where it rains for days.  If you are visiting Portland during the rain, do as the locals would do and visit Lan Su anyway.  Some swear that during the rain is the most beautiful time to be there.  Still doubtful?  Check out this site:  lansugarden.org/visit/lan-su-in-the-rain/