Wind Chimes Help Mother Nature Sing
No man-made landscape is quite so elegant as an Oriental Garden can be. Such gardens can appear as if no human hand had touched them, belying the prodigious efforts expended crafting them. One of the foremost concerns is that Mother Nature should not be sculpted into something that so obviously appears crafted. Let’s take a look at an illustration of our point, in the form of wind chimes, often found in the gardens of Japan and China (especially the former). These ingenious devices provide a shape to the wind’s otherwise completely random musings without dictating the exact words, so to speak. While designed to repulse evil, it is evident that their real talent lies in charming people!
Many Asian cultures believe in conforming to nature and letting her determine her own course. Everything is left alone, much as is possible. Gold fish in the pond. Wind chimes in the distance. While manicured landscapes in the West celebrate glory, those in the East seek to promote a most demure tranquility. Chinese gardens do tend to be more extravagant, almost in the manner of a stereotypical French creation, as it were, whereas Japanese designs are more subdued, being more cerebral. Nevertheless, the Asian sensibility is such that naturalness is preferred over even the most imaginative designs of man.
The difference may lie in the fact that Japan still has a shamanistic culture in the form of Shinto while China’s Confucianism has thoroughly pushed aside its Taoist tendencies. In that respect, the Chinese aesthetic is more “yang” to the Japanese “yin,” so to speak. But the main motivation with each is to let nature lead when it comes to design choices. Of course, gardens are, in the final analysis, entirely man-made affairs. In Asia, however, it is recognized that oftentimes almost no human input is necessary; that’s the difference. Similar to the way wind chimes just channel the music of the wind, Asian gardens tend to work around nature as much as possible.