Zhang Family Garden in Jianshui County, Honghe
Chinese Name:建水团山村张家花园
English Name: Zhang Family Garden in Jianshui County, Honghe
Honghe Zhang Family Garden in Jianshui County, travel guide introduces the main attractions, entrance tickets booking, The best time to visit, How to Get there, the highlights, facts, history, photos, weather, accommodation, visiting routes, travel tips, tour maps of Zhang Family Garden in Honghe(建水团山村张家花园).
Along the same road as the double-span bridge, there is a amazing place, called Zhang Family Estate. The estate is a fascinating collection of traditional Chinese architecture dwellings and temples. Contemporaries of the Zhu, they were so wealthy that stores filtered to the capital, Kunming, of the Zhang family paying craftsmen the same weight in silver as they carved in wood for the Zhang estate’s interiors. The wooden carvings in this area need to be seen to be believed. They’re immensely thought, multiple-layered and feature a tangle of creatures, figures and plants. There’s great stone carvings too.
The intricate carvings in all of the folding doors and gables is amazing, and some of the gold paint still clings to the wood, giving you an idea of how the place must have looked when new. Built (like the Zhu Family Garden) to display the wealth of a local merchant family, the place is now inhabited by commoners and is falling apart.
You can get a Chinese guide around the place, who basically acts as a facilitator (and/or excuse) for pushing your way in to the inhabitants’ houses. You can eat here too, but it’s not cheap and the food isn’t fantastic – though it’s well-on edible and the vegetarian is A-OK. Oh yeah, nobody speaks English. They have a guest book at the restaurant, with some interesting entries.
Don’t be a fool and get caught without your camera. After a tour, you can stay for a meal and some rice-wine in the courtyard of one of the traditional architecture houses.
