The Garden of Sanmao (Spirituality) 灵性
We carry on with our tour. We remain at San Juan Park. Without moving too far from the olive tree in honour of Jose María Quero and the sculpture of “Three hairs”, travellers will now come to a garden of giant red-painted boulders. We are at the fourth season of our walk, the Garden of Sanmao.
Within the Sanmao-Echo Chen Tour in Gran Canaria, this spot is signposted with the value of “spirituality”
灵性
This is a tiny garden located on an area of lawn. Here stand some organic structures in the form of “callaos”, meaning boulders,. The word “callao” comes from Portuguese, and is deep-rooted in Canary culture, referring to the pebbles and small boulders which Sanmao loved to paint and give away to her friends while showing local children how to paint too. Reddy touches, a colour considered to bring good luck in China, decorate these sculptures.
This area is close by the town’s holy area, which is integrated within the park itself. In the Garden of Sanmao it is clearly apparent how much love the writer had for her husband José María. The site has since become a meeting place for different people, where they come to do activities such as meditation, tai-chi and yoga, while at the same time serving as the perfect place to take some beautiful photographs next to the “boulders” as a memento of their visit.
The Garden of Sanmao takes us a little further into ourselves. Its peaceful surroundings that enable us to meditate are another of the threads to the memory of Echo Chen. In Sanmao’s life there was always room for thoughtful reflection, a calm space where she found the words to describe her personal experiences in the simplest of ways. She wrote: “There is only one adjective that can define what I like, and that is “varied”. ( ) “Varied” represents change, and change is a kind of beauty”.
Sanmao indeed was a women who took interest in a thousand different varieties of beauty, from painting and gardening to cooking and so many other ways. Her memory grows ever more grand here in this tiny garden.
Sanmao says about Spirituality:
Echo Chen wrote: “Several years ago I spent time in the Sahara Desert. That vast expanse inspired me infinitely making my desire for material things fade into darkness, replaced by a bright light within me”.
Sanmao says about Spirituality:
Echo Chen wrote: “Several years ago I spent time in the Sahara Desert. That vast expanse inspired me infinitely making my desire for material things fade into darkness, replaced by a bright light within me”.
