Turtle Garden in Xiamen
By admin on 2015-01-16

Turtle Garden (Aoyuan 鳌园) Situated on the southeastern tip of Jimei Town, Turtle Garden includes a 50-metre-long corridor, a monument and the Mausoleum of Tan Kah Kee.The buildings and carvings in the garden all embody his thought of tourism and amusement teaching, including ancient and modern at home and abroad, astronomy and geography, science and technology as well as culture and education, calligraphy and paintings, animals and plants, industrial and agricultural production, etc. It is comprehensive, broad and profound. It is a grand sight of natural history.

Being of a subtropical monsoon climate with mild weather all year round .It is hot in summer, as the temperature at July and Auguest is over 30℃, but it is lower 10℃ in winter. The average temperature is 21℃. Spring and autumn is the best travel season.

The park is composed of three parts: the portico, the Monument to Liberation and Tan's Mausoleum. The portico characteristic of the Chinese style is as long as 50 meters going in four directions. The walls o?n both sides of the corridor have bluestone carvings of 58 pictures relating the lives of historical figures, which is the highlight of 653 carvings in Turtle Garden. The walls outside the portico have 291 carvings of all sorts, of which 229 are relief carvings, 42 are sunken carvings and 20 are shadow carvings. Moreover, there are calligraphy, couplets and inscriptions by famous personages of all kinds of styles, such as Lucida Handwriting, Seal characters, Cursive handwriting, etc. With excellent handwritings and gorgeous technique of carving, it is a treasure of Fujian stone carving art.

Jimei monument to Liberation is the principal building in the Turtle Garden. It is as high as 28 meters, symbolizing China Communist Party obtained the victory through 28 years of fighting. The face of the monument is inscribed by Chairman Mao with "Jimei Monument to Liberation". It is the o?nly o?ne time for Chairman Mao to inscribe the name of monument to liberation for a town. o?n the back of it is the inscription written and calligraphed by Tan Kah-kee.

Turn around the screen wall, and you will get to the tomb of Tan Kah-kee. The tomb lies at Midnight and faces Noon, shaped like a longevity turtle. The cover of the tomb is made by putting together 13 pieces of hexagonal bluestones. The tomb has the hull of the character "wind". The inner side of the tomb is 15 pieces of inlays of bluestone relief carvings with the upper half of Tan Kah-kee's life. The surrounding stone carvings record his lifetime of investing to set up schools and dedicating to the motherland.

Travel Information

Traffic
Walk from the Jimei school villiage , it is beside the Jimei middle school.
Turtle Garden Fee and Opening Hour
Admission: 20 Yuan
Opening Hour: 6:00—20:00
Tips
1.the coldest month is January, the hottest month is July. The rain season is May to June and the typhoon season is July to September. These two season may have big rainfall, so if you want to go out , please carry the rain gears.