Covering 51,950 square meters, the Humble Administrator's Garden is the largest of all classical gardens in Suzhou. It is centered upon the broad expanse of a lake, making up about one fifth of the total area. With well spaced buildings, the garden landscape and water scape are simple, extensive and natural, possessing the traditional appearances of the Ming Dynasty. It is divided into three parts; the eastern, middle the western parts. The house lies in the south of the garden.

The middle part is the cream of the garden with marvelous mountains, clear water, exquisite buildings and exuberant trees and flower reminiscent of the scenery in the south of the Lower Yangtze .Lying here and there to the south of the lake are garden buildings and courts in cluster. On an east-west axis there's the Hall of Drifting Fragrance in the middle, flanked by the Loquat Garden Court, the Malus Micromalus Makina court, the Poeny Pavilion ,the Listening to the Sound of Rain Pavilion, the small Canglang, "A Pure Mind Thinks Deep", and the Magnolia Hall. Rising from the lake are the east and west hills made from a mixture of earth and rocks, and covered with trees. The Prunus Mume Pavilion and the Orange Pavilion stand atop of the hills. By the side of the lake there are forsythias gently stroking the surface of water, and bringing about delightful effects of nature. Much of the surprise comes from the disposition of the Fragrant Isle, the pavilion in lotus breezes and the Mountain-in-View Tower to the west of the lake. From the secluded pavilion of Firmiana Simplex and Bamboo one is able to catch sight of the pagoda of paying debts of gratitude in distance. The picturesque scene of the pagoda mirrored in water is an example of the garden technique called "borrowed view from afar".

The buildings in the western part of the garden are properly arranged by the lake. To the south of the lake is a big mandarin duck's hall with two halves. The northern half is named "the Hall of 36 pairs of mandarin ducks" and the southern half "the hall of 18 camellias ".built to the west of the lake are the Inducalamus Pavilion ,the "With Whom Shall I Sit" pavilion, the Floating Green Tower, the Stay-and-Listen Pavilion, the Pagoda Reflection pavilion. Going up and down and in a zigzag, a unique veranda over the water is a structure built along the wall to the east of the lake. The Good-For-Both-Families Pavilion on the top of the hill overlooks the middle and western parts, another example of the garden technique called "borrowed view from near".

Decorated with the Cymbidium Virens Hall, the lotus pavilion, the Celestial Spring Pavilion, the Far Away Looking Pavilion and the All blue Pavilion, the eastern part of the garden has verdant hills with pine and bamboo, distant islands encircled by winding streams, and an extensive area of grass, flowers and trees.

Glowing out of the mud, lotus blooms still keep themselves pure and clean. The farther their smell drifts the purer it becomes. A good number of buildings in the garden are named after lotus blooms, often known as "a true person of the virtue "among flowers, such as the Hall of Drifting Fragrance, the Lotus Pavilion, the pavilion in the Lotus Breeze, and the Stay-and-Listen Pavilion, expressing the theme of the whole garden----to be pure as lotus blooms.

Lying to the south of the garden is the house, which is the typical residence in Suzhou. On north-south axis there are four successive buildings, namely the Sedan-Chair Hall, the Reception Hall and two two-storeyed buildings. To the east of the axis are the Mandarin Ducks' Hall with flower-basket decoration, the Flower Hall and the Four -Sided Viewing Hall.

The Humble administrator's Garden boasts altogether 48 different buildings, 101 parallel couplets and door plateaux, 40 stelae, 21 precious old trees, namely Wistaria, Sabina chinensis, Pterocarya stenoptera, etc. falling into 13 different catalogues, and over 700 bonsai (potted landscape) kept in the Bonsai Garden in the western part of the garden ,representing the Suzhou style bonsai ,one of the four leading bonsai styles in china.

Compactly yet harmoniously spaced, the Lion Forest Garden has a prominent part for series of man-made mountains with various buildings around the lake, and an artificial waterfall and cliffs at the edge of the lake on the west. Remains of the 14th century man-made mountains, covering 1,152 square meters, and being the largest of all at Suzhou, can be still seen today. Noted for its labyrinthine mountains with winding pathways and caverns, old pines and cypress trees, awesome peaks and jogged rocks of grotesque shapes resembling dancing lions with striking and unusual poses, it possesses with pride the true delights of mountain and forest scenery in limited space with a flavor of Zen Buddhism.

The Hall of Peace and Happiness, one of the principal buildings in the garden, is a master-piece of typical mandarin ducks' hall at Suzhou. Divided in halves, the northern half of the hall differs from the southern half in many particular aspects, such as beam-framing systems, furnishings, pavements, carvings, window designs and so forth. With painted patterns and beam carvings and looking splendid in green and gold, the True Delight Pavilion in the royal style with the "True Delight "tablet inscribed by the Qing Emperor Qianlong is a main viewing place in the garden and differs from the other plain and elegant gardens of Suzhou. Other buildings include the pointing at Cypress Trees Hall, the Asking Prunus Mume Pavilion and the Stone Boat, etc.

The Lingering Garden was listed from the first as cultural relics of national importance in 1961. With an area of 23,310 square meters, it is celebrated for its artistic way of dealing with the spaces between various kinds of architectural form. Buildings make up one third of the total area of the garden, the hall of which being the most remarkable in Suzhou. The garden is separated into the middle, eastern, northern and western parts. The ancestral temple and the house lie to the south of the garden.

Featuring man-made mountain and lake scenery in the west and garden courts in the east, the middle part of the garden is the original site of the Xu's East Garden and the Liu's Hanbi Villa, and is regarded as the best part of the whole garden. The eastern, northern and western parts are the extensions of the Sheng's Garden. The eastern part is noted for its strangely shaped limestones, the northern part idyllic scenes, and the western part the delights of woody hills.

A winding roofed walkway behind the small entrance of the garden, while leading to the places of quietude, shows the masterly use of contrast between big and small, straight and zigzag, and light and shade. After strolling for about 50 meters, one can catch a glimpse of lattice-windows revealing a half visible landscape garden behind. Interestingly enough, the view is changing at every step.

The middle part of the garden is centered upon a lake with man-made mountain in the north-west and a number of attractive buildings in the southwest, such as the Hanbi Moutain Villa, the Pellucid Tower, the Green Shade Pavilion, the Zigzag Stream Tower, the Hao Pu Pavilion, and the Refreshing Breeze Pavilion by the lake. The mountains made mainly of yellowstones and earth, believed to be designed and piled up by Zhou Binzhong, look very much archaic and splendiferous. The admirable Crane House, the Small Garden of Stone Forest, the Return-to-Read Study in the east with the Celestial Hall of Five Peaks as the chief structure are laid out in such a way that the indoor spaces have been brought into perfect harmony with the outdoor spaces. With an evocation of infinity, they are successfully made to be labyrinthine.

Flanked by the Auspicious Cloud and Mountainous Cloud peaks, the 6.5-meter-high Cloud-Capped Peak, the highest limestone in the classical gardens of Suzhou, is believed to be left behind by the imperial collector of the Northern Song Dynasty, Mass of buildings, including the Old Hermit Scholars' House, the Cloud-Capped Tower, the Cloud-Capped Terrace and the Awaiting Cloud Temple, are put up to give emphasis to the Cloud-Capped Tower, The northern part is now a bonsai garden in which about 500 valuable bonsai are put on display.

The western part of the garden sets a fine example of good-looking earthen hills studded with yellowstones and covered with maple trees. There is a winding brook lined with peach trees and weeping willows.

The number of stelae in the Lingering Garden has never been surpassed by any other gardens in Suzhou. Superbly inscribed with the works of more than a hundred calligraphers in the Jin, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, these invaluable stelae bring to light the evolutionary course of Chinese calligraphy in the past 1,000 years.

The whole garden possesses with pride 42 rooms and halls , a 670-meter-long roofed walkway,200 lattice-windows of different kinds, 44 parallel couplets and stone carvings , 373 stelae, and 17 such valuable old trees as gingkoes, southern wisteria, etc. which fall into 8 catalogues.

Celebrated for the delights of the wilderness of mountain and forest scenery, the Canglang Pavilion is the oldest among the existing classical gardens of Suzhou. The exact location of the Canglang Pavilion can be found in the Song Dynasty map of Pingjiang (Suzhou, A.D.1229) inscribed on the stele. The northern Song poet Su Sunqin said in "A Record of the Canglang Pavilion","...To the east of the Confucian Temple were earthen hills covered with trees and grass, and a wide expanse of water, quite different from the urban scenes... I was reluctant to leave because I fell in love with this place. So I bought it for 20,000 coins, built a pavilion on the rock projecting over the water comes to the garden and catches sight of man-made mountain covered with age-old trees and bamboo, running from east to west. At the foot of the mountains are rocky slops. The Canglang Pavilion in the shape of a square stands at the top of the mountain and has a parallel couplet from the Song poets on the stone pillars to heighten artistic conception, reading,"The refreshing breeze and the bright moon are priceless, the nearby water and the distant mountains strike a sentimental note," Most of the garden buildings, simple and plain, were rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty, carefully arranged around the mountains and connected by a long roofed walkway. A double-corridor built by the canal lies to the north of the garden, unifying waterscapes outside the garden and "mountain scenery" inside in one breath through its latticed windows, one of incredible examples of borrowed scenes in the classical gardens of Suzhou. There're over 100 different latticed windows with impressive designs, possessing extremely high artistic value.

To the south of the mountains is the chief building of the garden, called "the Enlightenment Hall". Other building include the Smelling Prunus Mume Pavilion, the Realm of Yaohua (Yaohua is said to be a kind of jade-like, sweet-smelling flower in the Chinese garden of Eden, which can help prolong the life expectancy of those who behold it.),the Mountain-in-View Tower, the Elegant Bamboo House, the Temple of 500 Sages, the Pure Fragrance House, the Imperial Stele Pavilion, the Pavilion Fronting Water, the Fish Watching Spot, the Water Pavilion of Lotus Fragrance, and the Prunus Mume pavilion.

The garden has altogether 20 different building, 22 plateaux and tablets, 23 parallel couplets,153 steles, and 12 such valuable old trees as gingo biloba L., pterocarya stenoptera, celtis sinensis pers, camellia japenica L., santalum album, chimonanthus praecox, etc., which fall into 10 catalogues,70 kinds of valuable cymbidium spp., and 18 kinds of bambusoideae.

Surrounded by the canal from three sides, the Couple's Garden Retreat has piers close to the front and back entrances. The housing complex, located in the middle and flanked by the East and West Garden, consists of four buildings in succession and is joined with the gardens by multi-storied buildings.

The East Garden has a dominant "mountain" rising from a pond .The pavilions, terraces and towers are centered upon the mountain. The Thatched Cottage at the City Corner,a principal structure of the garden, is made up of a group of double-roofed and multi-storied buildings, fronting a very natural and realistic yellowstone mountain, running from east to west, piled up by the great master Zhang Nanyang at the end of the Ming Dynasty. To the south of the pond is the Amongst Mountains and Water Pavilion. Made of ormosia wood in the Ming Dynasty, the circular door frame of the pavilion, about 4 m. across and 3.5 meter high, was carved with an open-work picture of "Three Friends in the Dead of Winter", namely pine, bamboo and prunus mume instinct with life, an art treasure of this sort in the classical gardens of Suzhou.

The West Garden consists of studies, pavilions and garden courts. One enters the garden and gets a glimpse of limestone mountains with caves connected up with each other below and an undulating wall above, which encloses and divides space. To the north of the mountains is the Old House with Woven Curtains, at the rear of which there's a study, an "L" shaped tower used as a library, decorated with rocks, trees and flowers in front.

The Couple's Garden Retreat has 24 buildings,21 tablets and parallel couplets,10 brick carvings, and 7 valuable old trees such as pinus bungeana Zucc, pinus thunbergii Parl ,wisteria sinensis Sweet, etc.

The Master-of-Nets Garden covers 5,400 square meters. And is divided into two parts: the eastern house and the western garden. Half enclosed by a screen wall with a row of iron rings for tethering horses, and two alleyway side entrances, the front door faces south, having a pair of var. pendula in front, and hairpin-like door ornaments above, and two huge blocks of stone carved in the shape of drums kept fast with the hands, placed one by its e. This type of front door showing owner's rank at the court has become very rare now. On a north-south axis there are four successive buildings separated by garden courts, namely the front door hall, the sedan-chair hall, the grand reception hall and the two-storied tower. Constructed in accordance with the strict regulations of feudalism, they are magnificent buildings with extraordinary furnishing and interior decoration. In front of the grand reception hall is a door with richly carved earthen ornamentation. The two-storied tower at rear is the place where the family used to stay, and the hall in front is chiefly for reception, public celebrations and ceremonial observances. Every hall has a door or walk-way leading to the garden. It is a typical example of combining living quarters with a landscape garden in Suzhou.

The garden lies to the northwest of the house, making up four fifth of the total area. Quite different from the normal architecture in the east, the garden architecture enjoys a considerable degree of free. Varieties of building are laid out to meet the needs of reading, painting, viewing, resting, sipping tea. Holding small banquets among scholarly friends, capping verse, performing on a musical instrument, meditating on nature and cultivating one's mind. Roughly speaking, there are three parts in the garden. The Small Hill and Osmanthus Fragrans Pavilion, the Daohe House and the Music Room constitute the middle distance of the confined southern part of the garden. The technique of emancipation by suppression and contrasting light with shade are remarkably employed to make the middle part of the garden appear more impressive that it is when seen alone.

The middle part of the garden has a pond in the center covering about 440 square meters, with a small bay to the northwest and a streamlet to the southeast giving the impression of infinity. It is curved round by a roofed walkway, natural-looking mountains made from yellow stones piled up in layers forming hollows and caverns within, a tiny arch bridge called "the Leading to Quietude", and a number of delicate and well-proportioned pavilions, namely the Washing-My-Ribbon Pavilion over the water, the Moon Comes with Breeze Pavilion, the Prunus Mume Pavilion and the Duck-Shooting Veranda. The Washing-My-Ribbon Pavilion over the water is the best viewing place of the garden. The idea comes from a fishman's song in the works of Mencius, saying,"If the water of the Canglang River is clean, I wash the ribbon of my hat; if the water of the Canglang River is dirty, I wash my feet." The same is true to the name of the garden---"Master-of -Nets".

The northern part of the garden features studies and studios with beautiful garden courts. Some noteworthy places include the Peony Study, the Watching Pines and Appreciating Paintings Studio, the Meditation Study, the Five Peaks Library and the Cloud Stairway Room. With white -washed walls as their backdrop, stones bamboo, Prunus mume and Musa basjoo partly concealed by windows and buildings have incredibly come to form numerous picturesque scenes.

In sum, there are scenes beyond scenes, and gardens within the garden. Many buildings are perfectly well-spaced instead of being crammed. A small area of water and stone is made to seem large. Based on illusion, the garden is full of change, capturing the effect of boundlessness, and achieving a unity of part and whole. The Master-of-Nets Garden serves to illustrate how the few surpasses the many and the small exceeds the large.

Today the Master-of-Nets Garden has 22 buildings, 2 doors with richly carved earthen ornamentation,15 plateaux, 9 parallel couplets,15 brick and stone carvings, 32 stelae, and 8 rare species of old trees, namely Sabina chinensis ,Pinus bungeana, etc. falling into 6 catalogues.

Celebrated for its wonderful limestone mountain, the Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, covering only 2,180 square meters, enjoys the same reputation as other famous garden in China. According to the historical records, the limestone mountain was designed and piled up by the great Qing master GuYuliang (1764 A.D--1830 A.D). Within an area of less than 500 square meter, the man-made mountain seems to be spontaneous an uncontrived ,possessing high peaks (about 7M),dells, pathways, caverns, stone houses, stone steps, ravines, precipices, gullies, bridges and cliffs. Like free hand brushwork in Chinese painting characterized by vivid expression and bold outline, it ranks first among all existing man-made mountains in Chinese gardens.

A number of buildings are arranged opposite to the mountain. There are two halls to the south of the mountain, facing each other over a stream. The front hall is called "In Company with a Ravine" and the rear hall "the Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty". On the top of the mountain is a pavilion called "Housing the Mountain with a Half-Filled Pool in Autumn". At its foot are the Putting-a-Question-to-the-Spring Pavilion and the Make-Up Autumn Galley. To the west of the mountain is a unique side structure with a long walkway on the ground floor and rooms one floor upstairs. There are viewing places high above or down below, far away or quite near. The man-made mountain scenery is changing at every step, and gives great pleasure to the viewer from any direction.

There are 8 buildings, 22 brick plateau stele, and 4 valuable old trees, namely pinups bungeana Zucc, Celtis sinensis Pers, etc., falling into 3 catalogues.

The pond in the middle of the garden occupies one fourth of the total area. It features "mountain scenery" to the south of the pond and buildings to the north. The pond has a roughly rectangular shape with coves at the southeast and southwest corners, which are spanned by low, flat and small bridges. On the east and west banks of the pond are roofed and open-sided galleries, pavilions, rocks and trees, serving transitionally as a foil to the northern and southern scenes. At the southeast corner of the pond is the Fry Pavilion that dates from the Ming Dynasty. A moon gate in the wall that borders the pond and the mountains leads to a small garden court on the southwest. The 6-pillar-wide Water Pavilion of Longevity lies to the north of the pond, overlooking the broad expanse of water, and is the biggest water pavilion at Suzhou. To the north of the water pavilion is the 6-pillar-wide Hall of Erudition and Elegance in the style of the Ming. The Garden of Cultivation, simple, rustic and natural, still keeps much of the layout, design principles and other characteristics of the Ming garden. It has 13 buildings, 17 tablets and parallel couplets,8 steles and stone carvings, pinus bungeana Zucc, podocarpus macrophyllus D.Don, and other valuable old trees.

The Retreat and Reflection Garden is composed of the housing complex, garden courts and a garden which are aligned on a west-east axis.

The housing complex consists of inner and outer houses. The outer house has a succession of three halls. The inner house to the east is made up of two two-storied buildings in the shape of "U", reached by two stairways on two sides.

The spacious garden court is the transitional area between the housing complex and the garden. There's a boat-like pavilion near the entrance for the reception of guests, a form of architecture typical in the Venetian region of Tongli.

The garden to the east is the cream of the property. Small and exquisite buildings, built close to the pond, are in admirable proportion to water scapes and landscape .The thatched Hall of Retreat and Reflection,a main structure of the garden,was constructed on the moon-viewing terrace, from which one is able to feast his eyes on surrounding scenes. Carefully arranged and well-spaced buildings around the pond include the Lotus Blooms Pavilion, the Stone Boat, the Hardship Terrace, the Zizania Rain Brings Coolness Pavilion,and the Celetial Bridge which is ,in fact ,a rare double-gallery in the south of the Lower Yangtze. To the southwest of the garden is the Osmanthus Fragrans Lour Hall in a peaceful and enclosed mini-garden within the garden .At the northwest corner is the Gathering Beauty Pavilion that overlooks the entire garden. The pavilion, connected with the Lasting Spring and Moon Viewing Tower in the middle part, borrows scenes from the garden and vice versa, an excellent example of garden scenes in the south of the Lower Yangtze.

In short, the Retreat and Reflection garden is full of changing vistas. There're gardens within the garden, principal and subordinate scenes. Space, including water space, has been ingeniously handled to suggest more space. Endless scenes have been created within limits. It serves as a fine example of how the few surpassing the many.

The Retreat and Reflection Garden possesses 24 buildings, 28 tablets and plateaux, 12 steles, and 15 valuable old trees such as magnolia denudata Desr, celtis sinensis Pers, etc., which fall into 9 catalogues.

Tiger Hill is situated in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. It is surrounded by water with pine and plum trees growing luxuriantly, which has the reputation of "The first scenic spot in Wu" (an area comprising southern Jiangsu Province and northern Zhejiang Province) by its imposing beauty and is the famous excursion center in China.

Although Tiger Hill does not have a large area, yet when one reaches Thousand People Rock and Sword Pond, one feels its power and grandeur, as if he himself were in the midst of precipice and deep valley. There are Leisure Spring, Testing Sword Rock, Third Spring, Broken-Pillar-Hall and Mountain Villa Wrapped in Emerald Green etc. scenic spots and historical sites.

Tiger Hill Tower: In the beginning it was built of wood, the structure of which was complicated, colorful and magnificent with unique style. The height of the Tower is 47.5m, built by laying eight cornered bricks in seven storeys, a thousand year old tower renowned for its beauty inside and outside China. Due to the cause of foundation, it started leaning towards north-west direction. The lofty slant tower adds more grandeur for Hu Chiu. The leaning extent is almost similar to that of the leaning Pisa Tower of Italy.

Being a clear spring, the Tiger Hill Sword Pond takes the form of rectangle at the foot of the Tiger Hill. It is alleged that the tomb of the King, Helu of Wu is under the Sword Pond, inside which three thousand odd swords including "Bianzhu" and "Yuchang" precious swords were buried.

Located in Fengqiao town outside the Suzhou city, the Hanshan Temple was constructed in the Jiannian Reign of the Liang Dynasty (502-519) with a history of over 1400 years. The legend says in the Zhenguan Reign of the Tang Dynasty, the famous monks Hanshan and Shide came here from the Tiantai Mountain to conduct prayer services, hence the name of the Temple.

Shrouded in the lush forests, and built with glazed tiles and yellow walls Hanshan Temple was crisscross with winding paths and overgrown with verdant pines and cypresses. Its main buildings include Daxiongbaodian (The Precious Hall of Sakyamuni), the wing halls, the hall of scriptures, verandas with tablets, the bell tower, the tower of Fengjian etc. Enshrined in the right wing hall are two obese figures, the statues of Hanshan and Shide, dishevelled and stripped to the waist, seated on an enormous lotus flower-shaped basin, one holding a vase and the other, lotus flowers. They are all smiles as if trying to tease the visitors.

The stone pedestal for Buddhas in the grand hall is sculptured on its sides with 36 poems by Hanshan and the images of Shide and Banwu in bold outline. Displayed in the two wing halls are 500 camphorwood-carved statues of arhats. Vivid and in simple style, they were carved with excellent workmanship.

Located in southwest Kunshan County in Jiangsu Province, Zhouzhuang is a famous town crisscross with rivers and lakes in South China. It is renowned for its quiet and exquisite surroundings, and simple and ancient houses. The original construction style characteristic of a market town on a water land has basically remained unchanged through the past 500 years. Over 50% of the buildings were constructed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Nearly 100 old houses with courtyards and over 60 carved-brick arches have still been preserved.

In Zhouzhuang, there are 10 stone arch bridges picturesquely arranged. These old bridges appear all the more hoary with grotesque trees growing out of the arches and vines hanging down, and covered with dark green moss here and there. Viewed from the balustraded bridges, one can appreciate the life-style of the waterside dwellers as well as the scenery of farmhouses and fields. The upside-down reflections of the bridges in the clear rippling water present a fantastic scene of myriad bridges.

The revetments, ferry crossings, river ports and bridge passages are all marked with striking features of a water land. Zhouzhuang is filled with the elegance and charm typical of an ancient town in South China and so fascinating with streets flanked by flat houses with a river at the back, the overhead building projections spanning a lane and the roads topped with flat and smooth slates as well as row upon row of small towers and pavilions.

Tongli Town is located by the Grand Canal and the Taihu Lake with 18 Kilometer away from Suzhou, 6 Kilometer from Wujiang and 80 kilometer from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. As an ancient town with

more than 1000 years history and very convenient transportation, Tongli features typically the water county of South China. There are 5 lakes surround Tongli from outside, and inside, the town is divided into 15 small islands by more than 10 rivers. However, the islands are connected by more than 40 various style stone bridges which built in different dynasties.

Tongli is famous for her small bridges, running water, households and the fame as the "Venice" of the East in the world, and was given the reputation of natural outdoor film studio by ovie an TV circles. In 1981 and 1982 Tongli was ratified as one of the thirteen national standard tour towns of Taihu Lake region and the sole provincial standard cultural relic protection town of Jiangsu Province successively, and was ratified as the first batch of famous historical and cultural town of Jiangsu Province in 1995. Now, there are many imposing dwellings and spacious courtyards and building of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and 35 cultural relic protection spots in Tongli.

With its long history, cultural background and abundant products, there are a lot of famous persons an Number One Scholar who come from Tongli, and the Min cake, smoke fish, meat dumpling, chestnut kernel, steamed meat bread and so on are well-known food of Tongli which have enjoyed high reputation. Directed by the overall plan of "protecting ancient town, developing tourist resource and economy", one garden, two halls, three bridges and Tongli Lake holiday have been formed and the T-shaped river course, Ming and Qing dynasties' streets, the pearl Tower, some temples and former residences are under renewal.

Kunqu (pronounced kwin chu) is one of the oldest and most refined styles of traditional Chinese theatre performed today. It is a synthesis of drama, opera, ballet, poetry recital, and musical recital, which also draws on earlier forms of Chinese theatrical performances such as mime, farce, acrobatics, ballad recital, and medley, some of which go back to the third century B.C. or even earlier. In a Kunqu performance, recitative is interspersed with arias sung to traditional melodies, called qu-pai. Each word or phrase is also expressed by a stylized movement or gesture that is essentially part of a dance, with strict rules of style and execution much like classical ballet. Even casual gestures must be precisely executed and timed to coordinate with the music and percussion. The refinement of the movement is further enhanced with stylized costumes that also serve as simple props. Suzhou is the hometown of Kunqu. By the end of the 16th century, Kunqu spread from the Suzhou region to the rest of China, and for the next 200 years was the most prestigious form of Chinese drama. Kunqu is also being regarded as the magnum opus of human oral and immaterial heritage by the UNESCO.