“Taking part in the Wu Opera-themed live-action role-playing (LARP) game was a great experience for us,” said a tourist. On May 3, a Wu Opera-themed LARP game Arranging Flowers and Candles for Wedding Night on an Auspicious Day was held in Yiyuan, which has been reconstructed in the village of Xiali, Yongchang Subdistrict, Lanxi, and provided visitors with a new experience.

“Li Yu (1611-1680) was not only a theorist but also a garden artist in the early Qing Dynasty,” commented famous gardening expert Chen Zhi in his Collection of Chen Zhi’s Gardening Work. Yiyuan was Li’s first masterpiece that showed off his gardening skills. Although it was not large and its architecture was not gorgeous, it had a reasonable layout with ingenious design, since Li adopted classic Chinese gardening techniques such as adjusting elements to local conditions, selecting themes for different spots, and combining culture with scenery. The pavilions, corridors, ponds, and bridges in the small garden were well located with diversified patterns. Each of them was moderately sized, simple, and practical. Yiyuan had both aesthetic and pragmatic functions: it was inhabitable and also welcomed visitors.

Yongchang Subdistrict of Lanxi began to rebuild Yiyuan in May 2020. The garden was restored according to the original records to retain its essence and fully demonstrate Li’s exquisite gardening ideas and skills. One year later, the reconstructed Yiyuan opened on May 1. The opening of the garden added new elements to Lixia Village, Li’s hometown. During the May Day Holiday, taking advantage of Li Yu culture, Lixia Village held a LARP wedding from Wu Opera in the newly built Yiyuan scenic spot and invited tourists to take part in the wedding.

Yongchang Subdistrict will continue to dig deeply into Li Yu culture, expand its influence, move Li’s works into Yiyuan, and embody Li’s ideas in the further construction of Yiyuan, so as to incisively and vividly display Li’s life and help visitors learn more about his dramas. (By Yu Meina, translated by Jin Haiqiong, edited by Kendra Fiddler)