China Seminar | 12 October 2000

Life in Chinese Gardens in Life

Mike Leidemann

Mike Leidemann is a feature writer and columnist for The Honolulu Advertiser. Previously he was Homestyle editor, a position that allowed him to write extensively about architecture, interior design, home improvement, and landscaping in Hawai’i. He also has worked as a reporter and editor for City News Bureau in Chicago, the Pacific Daily News in Guam, and The Associated Press in Honolulu. In 1999-2000 he was a University of Hawaii Asia Fellow. During that year he studied Asian theater, architecture, rhetoric, landscaping, urban planning, and Sanskrit, and developed an interest in Chinese and Japanese gardens. In May he and his wife Helen visited China for the first time where they visited the classical gardens of Suzhou, then continued to Kyoto for a look at Japanese gardens.

Please come and listen to Mike’s humane rendition of the aspects and appeal of the Chinese garden and view the extraordinary photographs taken by Helen Leidemann.