Life on the West Island - A friendship garden

During a recent visit to the West Island’s largest city, we had a most enjoyable walk around the Chinese Garden of Friendship at Darling Harbour. This haven of beauty and tranquillity sits alongside one of the city’s busiest roads, the A4 Western Distributor. Yet, once inside its high and imposing stone walls, there is barely any traffic noise, and the garden is a welcome retreat from the hustle and bustle of the Sydney CBD.

There are only four Chinese Friendship Gardens in the world. The other three are in Dunedin New Zealand; Portland USA; and Vancouver Canada. The garden was designed and sponsored by the Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou, Sydney’s sister city. The relationship between Sydney and Guangzhou (historically called Canton in English), the capital of Guangdong province, is particularly strong because of trade and migration since the earliest days of colonisation.

The Garden’s layout follows principles of Feng Shui, an ancient Chinese practice aimed at harmonising individuals with their environment by arranging spaces to optimise energy flow and promote well-being, wealth, and prosperity.

It was also modelled after the classic private gardens of the Ming dynasty, so that the Garden offers an insight into Chinese heritage and culture. It was built between 1986 and 1988 and added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018.

The publicity material for the Garden details that it formally opened to the public in 1988 during the Bicentennial celebrations, which strongly focused on the West Island's achievements as a multicultural society with an official theme of "Living Together".

Prior to colonisation, the site was open water adjacent to a low-lying swampy area. The land that would become the Chinese Garden of Friendship is in Cockle Bay and was progressively reclaimed and industrialised from the early years of the 19th century. Industries included ship building and repairs around the edges of the water, while further inland predominant uses were engineering workshops, metal foundries and food milling factories.

Visitors to the Garden are handed a pamphlet detailing its parameters:

The garden is a designed landscape largely enclosed by a masonry wall, covering 1.03 hectares (3 acres) in area. This area is composed of three main elements:

• garden landscaping, 5,700 square metres (61,000 sq ft)
• lake and streams, 3,300 square metres (36,000 sq ft)
• pavilions and other structures, 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft)

Once inside, visitors can wander its winding paths and admire the thousands of healthy plants and trees, including many bonsai specimens. There are numerous places to sit in quiet contemplation, including lookouts and raised viewing areas. The many areas of running water and small lakes contain dozens of colourful carp, while the rocky ledges and stone features have plenty of places for water monitors to sun themselves or to hide in crevices.

It was very noticeable that all plants appeared to be thriving and healthy, there were no weeds and the entire garden was free of litter and rubbish. Many small plants were in flower, including many colours of azalea and bright flowering bulbs.

The Visitors’ Guide uses more florid language to highlight the Garden’s overall impact:

The Garden of Friendship design weaves the principles of auspicious positioning and orientation to channel positive qi energy through the garden; provides a preferred large and central water body to capture positive energy otherwise expressed as wealth and prosperity; demonstrates the placement of landforms to block unfavourable weather while opening the garden to the positive movement of the sun; places pavilions around the water body to reflect upon and disseminate the positive energy stored within the water body; and establishes key visual connections between the host and guest pavilions and landscape. A 2004 feng shui assessment of the garden considered it as a reflection of these design principles and as an embodiment of the five elemental relationships between water, earth, air, wood and steel.

This process of "translation", in which a Southern-style garden was recontextualised in the setting of the new Darling Harbour development, brought together a unique fusion of Cantonese and Sydneysider styles, materials, artisanship and horticultural practices. In the spirit of "translation", the garden's plantings have evolved greatly since that time. It was very raw when opened and being a new landscape was overplanted in the expectation that natural losses would occur. It has prospered, and over time plants have been removed to give others around them room to expand, and to preserve particular visual connections.

Apart from plants and water features, the Garden has numerous granite bridges, large stone sculptures and 17 pavilions which provide shelter from the weather and quiet places of contemplation. There is a noticeable lack of commercialisation, although visitors are invited to share in modest and inexpensive food and beverages:

In the middle of a garden sanctuary, you will find One Dining. In the old tea house try delicious dumpling, pork buns and more. And if you aren’t peckish in the slightest then you can sit for a spot of Chinese tea - choose from all the greats, jasmine, China lychee and green Chai.

Visitors are invited to spend at least two hours inspecting the Garden, and we found that there was plenty to see and admire in that time. Hidden away between the frantic freeway and the equally robust 21^st Century thrills of Darling Harbour, the Chinese Garden of Friendship is a West Island “must see” visitor attraction, only a ten minute walk from the throbbing heart of the city CBD. Next time you visit Sin City, get out of the commercial hubbub and chill out at the delightful Chinese Garden of Friendship!