Receiving Room at the Hall of Thirty Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks 三十六鸳鸯馆
Right above where the mandarin ducks were happily swimming about, was a hall which incidentally was named after them. The Hall of Thirty Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks is a strangely named hall. Could it be that when the hall were being built there happened to be thirty six pairs of the ducks, hence the name? It seems that because of the name, the garden managements now finds it necessary to put live mandarin ducks near the pavillion. I wonder if they actually limit them to thirty six pairs, what if they multiply? Do they eat them?
Stained Glass at the Hall of Thirty Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks 三十六鸳鸯馆
It’s namesake hall was just upstairs and really doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the ducks found below. There was an elegant living room on top, presumably to allow visitors to rest and observe the ducks. One thing I noticed was its use of stained glass, a very un-Chinese material, which I would normally associate with Western culture. I would assume that the windows here were done much later when the technology of making them finally arrived.
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