Fukushūen Garden
Walled Chinese garden of ponds, zigzag bridges and a hillside waterfall, built stone by stone by Fuzhou craftsmen.
The Fukushūen Garden guide opens with a question worth asking inside this walled Chinese garden: what was written in a single letter that cost so many lives? It traces the story of Kumemura, the quarter Ming China settled in the 1390s, and of Sai On, the commoner who rose from it to run the Ryukyu kingdom in the early 1700s after study in Guangzhou and years spent draining swamps and terracing hillsides. Rivals who resented his ties to China turned against him, and the guide follows the denunciation that reached Japan's Satsuma domain in 1734. The garden itself, built stone by stone from Fuzhou materials in 1992, echoes the same coastline Kumemura's founders once sailed from.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.