Chinese Garden
The Chinese Garden was built in 1966-1967 with Ka Doroy Valencia, then NPDC Vice Chairman soliciting funds from Taiwan who sent 78-year-old C.Y. Shih, one of the top landscapers in Taiwan. Assisting Shih was Ernesto Villavicencio, Filipino-Chinese Landscape Architect. The construction of the Chinese Garden cost more than P850,000, a staggering amount at that time.
All over the garden are irregularly-shaped stones from Antipolo, trees, plants as well as a man-made lagoon, pagodas and gazebos accentuated with red pillars and green-tiled roofs. The life-sized granite Confucius Monument of the Chinese Garden is a unique celebration of the essence of true Chinese culture which aims to promote traditional and positive Confucian and Filipino values as well as to honor all teachers – the unsung heroes of society. It is a donation of the Anvil Business Club as a way of reciprocating China’s support for the Rizal Monument in Rizal’s ancestral home village of Siong-que in Jinjiang City of Fujian province. There is also a wisdom walk which features Chinese proverbs written in Chinese characters and translated in English and Filipino. The Chinese Garden is now considered as a venue for social gathering, personal and commercial shoots, and other Chinese-related celebrations.