Letter from China by David Johnson I haven't been exposed to many quality Chinese penjing (bonsai) but that changed in Nanjing and Yangzhou. Earlier in Guangzhou, I had seen just a few quality penjing after visiting several park collections. Many of these trees in Guangzhou were Fukien Tea, Chinese Elm, Chinese Quince, Ficus and Japanese White Pine. There were many other trees I could not identify. In Nanjing, our guide Mr. Chen Yan (Simon) took us to the Zhonghua City Gate, a gate leading into the old walled city of Nanjing, completed in 1386. This gate really consists of several gates separated by inner-courtyards. In one of these inner-courtyards, there was a sign indicating a "bonsai" collection. I went inside and met Mr. Yin Jun Ming, a retired metal worker who was painting a watery clay solution on a bare-rooted deciduous tree's roots and branch pruning cuts. He said it was good for the tree before it was repotted. Mr. Yin is the vice-president of the Jiangsu Provincial Bonsai, Root Art and Aesthetic Research Institute. My biggest surprise was the excellent quality of the trees. There were similar tree species as the ones in Guangzhou but there were no Fukien Tea (a semi-tropical plant). However, there were some trees covered in plastic for winter protection because Nanjing is further north than Guangzhou. The collection also had Flowering Plum and Japanese Maple. Two days later in Yangzhou, I visited Hong Yuan (Red Garden) and met Mr. Zhao Qingquan, vice-president of the Chinese Penjing Artists Association. Mr. Zhao's book on penjing was recently reviewed in the TBS Journal. Mr. Zhao has also done demonstrations and workshops in the United States and will be at the next BCI convention in Florida. Mr. Zhao showed us the trees still protected in the greenhouse. He pointed out a Chinese Elm--Lingnan style, where shaping occurs through pruning not wiring, Japanese White Pine literati and cascade, Ginkgo, Plum, Japanese Quince, Japanese Cork-bark Black Pine and others. A number of people in the greenhouse were working on a variety of projects: rock landscape, re-potting, pruning, leaf plucking and wiring. The garden is government funded and open to the public for free where penjing lovers can view the trees and chat. The trees in Hong Yuan were of very high quality. They were better in life than some of the pictures I have seen. The species were similar to those in Nanjing and were mostly planted in plain pots, without calligraphy or other decoration. Many of the pots in Guangzhou were glazed and decorated. In Yixing, famous for its pottery, most of the new pots are decorated but some are undecorated and in natural colours. From what I have seen so far, what struck me the most has been the high quality of the trees that I had not expected due to my own ignorance. These high quality trees have opened my eyes to the contributions of Chinese penjing. ------------------------------------------------------- February 9, 2002 (Editor's Note: David Johnson recently spent several weeks touring and studying bonsai in both China and Japan.)