19th September 2021
Most general parks in Japan have grassy areas and trees and bushes1 like parks in many countries and are not thought of as traditional Japanese style parks.
公園 (kōen) is the Japanese word for park and the word 庭園 (teien) is the traditional Japanese style part which is part of a larger park or it is the whole park itself. Some traditional parks that are not called ‘teien’ also have features2 that make them traditional style parks.
One of the main features of traditional Japanese parks and gardens is that they are not symmetrical3. Japanese parks are asymmetrical. Asymmetrical means not symmetrical.
Having lots of curves, not straight lines, is another feature. There are often rocks and water which are said to be a miniature version of the real land. The rocks are the islands and the ponds and the streams4 are the sea and the rivers.
Most of the plants are evergreen5, for example pine trees. As you can imagine the main colour is green for most of the year. These places are not rainbow coloured!
There are often little paths6 and you can’t see all the garden from one viewpoint. The paths are hidden by trees or bushes or bamboo fences.
Japanese teien often have a pavilion, often near the pond and in parks, a pavilion is a building for sitting in and looking at the garden from.
Private gardens next to people’s homes are almost always very small and don’t have many of the features of the public7 gardens and parks.
2. ‘feature’
<Example sentences>
■ Long winter nights are a feature of life in Finland.
■ What is a feature of Japanese houses?
■ A feature of the band’s music is that they often have a long guitar intro.
3. ‘symmetrical’
<Example sentences>
■ The garden at Versailles Palace is based on a symmetrical design not an asymmetrical design.
■ The Japanese flag is symmetrical but the Chinese one is not.
7. ‘public’
<Example sentences>
■ Buses and trains are the main types of public transport.
■ These days most people have smartphones and public telephone boxes have mostly disappeared from the streets.
■ What’s your image of Japanese traditional parks and gardens?
■ Where’s a traditional park or garden I could visit?
■ (Name of park) is an example of a teien. It has ～.
■ In many of the pavilions in the Japanese style parks you can buy some green tea with ～.
- ‘bush’ means a woody plant like a low tree
- ‘feature’ in this sentence means the important part of something that makes it different to other things.
- ‘symmetrical’ means both halves are exactly the same as the other half.
- ‘stream’ in this sentence means a small river
- ‘evergreen’ means plants that don’t lose their leaves in winter. They are green all year.
- ‘path’ means a small walking way in a garden, park or away from a street.
- in this sentence ‘public’ means something that anyone can use. It is not private.