Rocks for Landscape Penjing (Bonsai)

A few days ago, with Teacher Wong and other lingnan penjing club members, we took hours of long rides to Yingde (英德) in Guangzhou, mainland China in the hope of obtaining some beautiful stones that can be used in our penjing (bonsai in Japanese).
“Penjing” in Chinese literally means “landscape in a pot”. Their art is more of reproducing a miniature landscape than creating a perfect tree as the Japanese are doing with their bonsai. While penjing and bonsai share many similarities, there is one thing that can only be found in penjing but not bonsai, and that’s the rock landscapes.

Yingde (英德) in Guangzhou, mainland China is a place known for its rocks and stones. There are rocks in all sizes and we literally had to dig through piles and piles of rocks when we were shopping for our rocks ( this can be quite physical demanding when it is done under the hot sun for hours).

Here are some of the rocks we have bought. Teacher Wong taught us how to pick the right stones for our penjing, as well as bargained for a better deal with the shop owner for us 🙂 Buying rocks and stones in Yingde is like buying pieces of artwork. Every piece is unique. There is no fix price.

One of our Lingnan Penjing club member, who wants to make a big rock landscape in her new garden, has bought 3 tons of rocks during our Yingde trip. Since these rocks are not chosen one-by-one, but randomly picked, they are really cheap, around 300 RMB per ton (a ton is even cheaper than some of the rocks which other members have bought).