The Gardens of Japan & China: by Michael Boxall
On a recent trip to Vancouver I visited my dear friend Michael Boxall. Nearly my entire life time ago he produced this👆🏻 radio piece for the CBC, about The Nitobe Memorial Garden, and the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. So, we went for a visit to each.
The Nitoba a traditional style Japanese tea garden. The lanterns, paths, bridges along the mossy carpeted forest around the lake, leading to the tea house, are designed to take the visitor along a route that represent the stages of our lives. the first lantern when you come in is ten feet tall, the Father lantern, is when you were born. Signs of the zodiac or carved around it. At the end of the stroll, our lives, the lanterns are only a few feet tall. The lantern by the edge of the water, is the snow viewing lantern, or the Mother lantern.
The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is right at the edge of Chinatown and downtown Vancouver to the west. In the years I lived in Chinatown and Strathcona, the neighborhood just to the east, I was a member of the garden and went there very often.
This is Fan Tower on Gore Street in Chinatown. I lived on the very top floor on the right corner.
And this is the apartment building I lived in, "Bad Manners". My unit was on the ground floor on the back, My window opened above the blue trash cans. On the ground floor of the building next door was a large open space, legendary puppeteer named Vern Claire. Myself and cohorts produced variety shows there. We called at the Diamond Water theater.
The whole garden is only 1600 square feet. The double sided covered walkways that angle back and forth, as well as that one can't walk across the small pond, makes it seem much bigger.
We also went on a little overnight camping trip to a beautiful campground in Howe Sound, Porteau Cove Provincial.Park. It's just north of the island I used to live on, Gambier Island.
