Garden, power, and the other: The cultural politics of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden.

摘要

One of the pressing challenges of our time is our inability to address the many unsettling social and cultural differences. Setting its primary stage in Vancouver's Chinatown, this thesis narrates an intricate story of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden, considered the most "authentic classical Chinese garden outside China". Evolving around the garden, the thesis unfolds the historical development of how "Chineseness" has been socially and culturally constructed in Canada, and the rich and diverse ways of seeing between the East and West.;From the contextual point of view, the first part of the thesis--"Other, Power, and the Garden"--traces the historic vicissitudes of Chinatown from its dark past to its present, and from the issue of Head Tax to the fight on Urban Renewal. Through a detailed historiography interwoven with interviews and personal memories, Part I brings the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden into life, into the arena of intercultural and intracultural politics. The themes of power struggle, cross-cultural gazing, dominance of Reason arise naturally with the flow of narration. Departing from the politics of interpretation, the second part of the thesis, "Garden, Power, and the Other", postulates the urgency to understand the power of cross-cultural gazing and mimicking. Oscillating between the age of Colonialism and the present state of Multiculturalism, the thesis leads to the murk of the mind where the Other no longer stands at arm's length, where the border between the Self and the Other, Sameness and Alterity, secretly blurs. To copy the Chinese gardens of Suzhou and to interpret the symbolism of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden forces Canadians (as well as Chinese Canadians) to come to terms with who they are, and why they want a Chinese literati garden in Vancouver.;Cutting through several disciplines, including Landscape Architecture, Architecture, City Planning, Sociology, Anthropology, Religion, and History, this thesis presents an elaborate example of how, in our daily lives and in times of crisis, a garden can function both as a symbol and as an operator in the interaction and mutual deconstruction of two different cultures. Thus, this thesis refrains from separating theory (the systemic discourse of culture) from practice (the discursive daily life). Based upon first hand field work and arrays of secondary texts, and through the voices of elders, community activists, architects, politicians, historians, tourists, and tour guides, this thesis produces a diffusing surface where the philosophical constructs of humanity meet the power struggle of ordinary people.;To present the story in its complexity, and to avoid any final analysis or violent simplification, the author of the thesis feels the need to adopt an unconventional way of writing. Instead of presenting one narrative or one version of history, the author tensely interweaves several layers of poetic and analytical texts. Towards the end, through recounting his personal odyssey, the author frames himself into the web of his writing. In so doing the author hopes to seek a sense of honesty.