FOR many people, autumn is the most enchanting season of the year. The last vestiges of summer warmth mingle with the crispness of the cool, fresh breezes that portend the coming of winter. The days shorten, and so too the shadows cast by a sun lower in the sky.

It's the time of year when leaves turn crimson and yellow and swirl to the ground. It's a time of year for reflection and a slower pace of life. No where is the spirit of the season more alive than in Jiading District. Walk among the hundred-year-old maidenhair trees, flecked in sunlight amid the endlessly changing beauty of Guyi Garden. Inhale the dense fragrance of the wintersweet and savor the delicate flavor of local lamb specialties. Jiading is even sharing its seasonal splendors with people offshore. Many of the district's horticultural heritage features have been incorporated into Haiyun Garden in the Taipei International Flora Expo, which opened this month.Lamb a feast for the palate

Li Ning

I live in the Jiangqiao Town of Jiading District, where plain sliced lamb is a popular dish.

Every time when visitors come here, we always include this course on the menu because it represents our specialties at their best. We aren't surprised when guests praise our lamb dishes as "delicious" or "amazing."

Raising sheep is an old custom in Jiangqiao. Almost all rural families once had sheep in pastures beside their crop lands. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when plain sliced lamb became such a signature dish. All I know is that everyone here loves it ? from children to their grandparents.

In 1980s, there were small restaurants in our town. All of them were family businesses, where cooking skills were passed down from generation to generation. In modern times, with the rapid pace of industrialization, the number of households raising sheep has become fewer and fewer, and so did the little restaurants serving plain sliced lamb. Today, there are maybe only four or five such restaurants left, including Dongming Lamb and Axue Lamb. During festivals, long queues can be seen outside their doors.

When I worked in the fields in my youth, my friends and I watched the flocks of sheep and savored the taste of lamb. At that time, lamb was comparatively cheap at only one yuan (16 US cents) for 500 grams. But even a yuan seemed a little steep to common farm laborers, so we were able to enjoy lamb only during ceremonies such as wedding and funerals.

I was lucky. I used to live alongside a lamb restaurant, and I often went there to watch how they cooked the meat. First the chef would immerse the lamb in water to wash out the blood. Then, the meat would be cooked in a big pot, with lots of condiments. The exact recipe was always a secret but the result was always the same: succulent meat, tender and delicate. The restaurant's lamb dishes always sold out quickly. No matter the season, the lamb in hot soup was always popular among gourmets.



Dongming Mutton Shop

Address: Jinyuan Rd, Jiangqiao Town

(All stories are translated by Pan Zheng)

Guyi Garden in seasonal splendor

Yu Junli

In most parkland areas, yellow leaves strewn on the ground signal autumn, but in Guyi Garden, it's also the fragrance of flowers that heralds the harvest season.

The garden, which has a history spanning back 480 years, is a delight to walk this time of year. The air is crisp and sometimes filled with swirling leaves cast off by trees going into winter dormancy. Autumn flowers abound. The scenery in the park is like a beautiful painting come alive at your footsteps.

Walking through the entry corridor and over a bridge, you'll come across a grove of maidenhair trees, also known as ginkgoes. Turning into golden yellow colors, they exemplify the change of seasons. Young children can be seen playing in the scatterings of fallen leaves. Older couples, sometime arm-in-arm, stroll the garden lanes, possibly remembering golden autumns of the past.

Walk a bit further, along a stream, and you arrive at Qingqing Garden. It is resplendent in green bamboos, interspersed with the red maple leaves of autumn. The effect of both, mirrored on the water, invites a quiet moment of reflection.

There's a slight chill in the air, reminding us of the advent of winter.

Soon snow will cover part of the garden, changing the whole scene in nature's dramatic way.



Address: 218 Huyi Rd, Nanxiang Town

A wintersweet moment of life

Xing Xinzhou

It's often said that middle-aged people are in the autumn of their lives. Of course, in nature, the seasons come and go, while for humans, we pass through the phases of life only once.

Autumn is a time of year when many of us stop and reflect on our lives. Therefore, one autumn morning, I decided to take a walk in the wintersweet garden of my hometown to take a break from the pressures of life and contemplate the beauty of the world around us.

Waigang Town, where I live, has a garden themed on China's indigenous wintersweet flowering shrub. I espied tiny shining yellow hidden among green leaves.

The wintersweet, which has a strongly fragrant flower, was just starting to bud. An artificial lake in the south of the garden attracted my attention. The water shimmered with twinkling flecks of sunlight, as if 1,000 elves were blinking their eyes. I sat down on the lawn at lakeside and watched fish moving silently in the waters.

After a short break, I walked farther and came across a building of classical architectural design. It was a research institute of wintersweet. I entered and was greeted with the dense fragrance of the wintersweet. Isn't it supposed to bloom only in winter?

The fragrance came from the back of the building. I explore further and found a "wintersweet resource garden." Dozens of varieties of wintersweet were planted there. Usually the wintersweet blooms in winter, but much to my delight I found there are some varieties blooming in autumn.

Throughout history, the wintersweet has been considered as the symbol of strength and pride. It stands for noble character and has always been popular icon among men of literature. It is said they lived just like the flower - alone and standing still. When they looked back in time, they rediscovered beautiful moments of their lives. It was a day that belonged only to them.



Address: No. 293 Jumen Village, west of Moyu Rd N., Waigang Town

Recreating old Shanghai in Taipei expo

Gu Xianhui

Jiading District contributed some of its finest landscaping artistry to the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, which opened on November 6.

The district's footprint was much in evidence in Shanghai's contribution to the exposition: Haiyun Garden. The rocks in the garden lanes are from Jiading Old Town, and much of the construction material also came from the district.

Adding the local Jiading touch is Pan Yunxing, an experienced garden designer from the district who is in charge of the entire Haiyun Garden project. He has been a horticulturist and landscaper since the 1980s and has earned a high reputation in his field of expertise.

"You can feel the history inside our gardens," said Pan. "Our innovation originates in the heritage our ancestors left us."

For the Taipei expo, Pan and his design team framed the theme and layout for the garden, then transported their work to Taipei.

Pan's idea was to display the old scenes of Shanghai, using many of old materials from the city. The team collected more than 70 tons of old construction materials and transported them to Taipei by air. All the materials have a history of more than 100 years.

Haiyun Garden occupies about 1,250 square meters in the Taipei expo site. It's divided into separate garden areas. The eastern part is themed on the old lanes of Shanghai. It features a lane covered with little rocks, just like the shikumen (stone-gate) style of 19th and 20th century Shanghai. The western part is themed on the concept of the "flying butterfly." It's a smaller garden that combines the indigenous flowers of both Taiwan and the Shanghai region. The bridge in the garden is in Suzhou style.

"Many older people know that Jiading is a historical cultural area full of classical gardens and temples," Pan said. "They're of different styles, functions and features, which show the high level of Jiading's traditional culture and construction technology.

"I remember when our garden construction team was working on some parks and gardens of Shanghai, such as Qiuxiapu Garden, Huilongtan Park and Guyi Garden, we strictly followed the traditional Jiading working procedures and our outcomes drew praise from landscaping experts," he added.

As native of Jiading, Pan harbors deep feelings for the district. The essence of Jiading is captured in all his horticultural designs, whether they are garden pathways, sculptures, plants, rocks or water features.

Pan admitted that he tends to stick his nose into old-style construction projects, and what he is always concerning about is how the work is being implemented. Recreating part of the past in today's modern world has just become part of him, he said. A tree of strength and pride

Xiao Xiao

It was a hot summer day when I visited Gushu Park at the first time. My friends and I decided to have a picnic there. When I just entered the park, I was attracted by one grand old maidenhair tree. The tree, belonging to the gingkgo family, was so massive that it would take the linked arms of about four or five people to gird the circumference of its trunk. Its roots resembled giant hands grasping the earth. The leaves of the crown of the tree afforded cooling shade to those taking refuge from the sun underneath.

It is said that this tree was planted in Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), which gives it a history dating back more than 1,200 years. It is listed by the municipal government as Shanghai Number 0001 ancient tree.

Gushu, which means "ancient tree" in Chinese, takes its name from the maidenhair. Locally, there's a legend that this tree - hundreds of years ago - was home to a goddess who lived in the crown and observed all the families living nearby. One day, the legend goes, she discovered one of the families was too poor to afford a stool before the firewood stove. She was very sympathetic and shook the tree slightly. One of the roots appeared in the family's kitchen, forming a stool. The family was so grateful that they paid homage to the tree and the goddess every year.

Throughout its history, this maidenhair tree was revered as a friend and protector of the Chinese people. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, some occupying Japanese soldiers wanted to cut the maidenhair tree down, but no matter how hard they tried, they failed to fall the giant. They even climbed up the tree and tried to cut some branches. However, when they got aloft, they were frightened of the sound of the leaves and fell down to their deaths. After that, nobody dared to contemplate cutting down the maidenhair.

It's become a tree for prayer for many people. Some tie red ribbons on the tree, hoping to secure the protection from the tree goddess.

In some sense, the maidenhair has become more than just a tree. It's an old sage that has witnessed the passing of time. It has seen sorrow and joy. It has seen babies born and old people die. Since the Tang Dynasty, the world has changed dramatically. People come and go, but the tree just stands there silently, a testament to the enduring heritage passed down through generations. It stands for the greatness of life.

Autumn comes and leaves on the both roadsides begin to turn yellow and fall. I wondered how the change of seasons had affected the grand old tree in the garden, so one afternoon I went to have a look. It was dusk and yet there were still people strolling in the park. The famous old tree stood there and, surprisingly, was still crowned with thriving golden leaves! It looked like a painting in the setting sun. A gust of wind blew and the leaves rustled. Maybe the tree was trying to recount to those nearby its tales of all it has seen and experienced.



Address: Taihai Rd (close to Anchen Rd), Anting Town