Natural Landscape: Its Emotional Impact and Effect on Cultural Transmission

Although the large and natural landscape around and surrounding Ritan park is one of the elements that helped convey a deep sense and emotion of culture among the park goers, our observation also created a “sense of barrier” between the different cultures.
On the one hand, our observation has suggested that the use of the natural landscape in addition to the artificial structures helped create a sense of emotion and culture among the park goers. This is essential in the goal of cultural transmission, especially considering that Ritan Park is the place where most of the embassies of various countries are located. For example, the blending of the natural landscape gives the visitors the feeling of an emotional impact while consuming traditional Chinese history since it is placed strategically with artificial buildings and structures to provide a sense of going back in time. We were able to observe this on how the natural landscape blends mesmerizingly with other structures such as the Water Pavilion (水榭), Qing Hui Pavilion (清晖亭), Garden with Curled Pool (曲池胜春园), and so on.
On the other hand, however, it seems that mere use of the natural landscape was not enough to create a sense of cultural reminiscence and transmission since several places in the Ritan Park, which should show pure elements of Chinese culture, were also designed for a globalized market. For example, as early as we entered the gate, we saw a microcosm of cultures within site since the traditional semi-cursive script of the Chinese was partnered hand-in-hand with English and other languages that show the manager’s focus on a globalized market. As we enter the park, these kinds of syntactic combinations of languages would be visible as a viewer gazes at the natural landscape, which seems to us, reduces the emotional impact of pure traditional culture when viewed by anyone. Nonetheless, we believe that this has very minimal impact on the effect of the landscape towards cultural transmission, and can even be used as opportunity, since it even helps in catering for foreigners to enjoy the scenic view and digest traditional Chinese culture.
On the other hand, however, we believe that the ‘emotional impact’ of the natural landscape was more significantly reduced by the park’s closure of some notable places like the Drossing Hall 具服殿,’ ‘Jirl, Circular Mound Altar 祭日拜台’ and so on. One of the keys and distinguishable elements of traditional Chinese culture is how its architectures blend perfectly and strategically with its natural environment CITATION Hil93 \l ...