Publications

Tiger Balm Gardens,
A Chinese Billionare's Fantasy Gardens

First published in 1998 in English, a limited edition of this book was published in Chinese in 2007. The book details the lavish Chinese gardens built by Aw Boon Haw in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The Tiger Balm Gardens are like nothing else in the world. They were built in the 1930s by Aw Boon Haw to educate overseas Chinese about their culture. Tiger Balm Gardens was the only private garden free to the public in Hong Kong. The parks were places where people could go and enjoy themselves among surreal statuary, artificial caves, and numerous lifesized tableaux depicting Chinese folklore and Buddhist and Daoist stories.

Because visitors would tell their friends to visit the parks constructed by the man who made the popular medicine Tiger Balm, the gardens became a powerful promotional tool.

Aw Boon Haw's generosity and vision survived a world war, but the Hong Kong gardens were torn down to make way for high-rise apartments in 2000. Nonetheless, Aw Boon Haw's Singapore garden still exists.

TIGER BALM GARDENS
A Chinese Billionaire's Fantasy Environments

Judith Brandel & Tina Turbeville

ISBN 962 672 052 2

10x10, Hardbound,

cloth cover, frenchfold dust jacket,

216 pages most with photographs

either color or historical black and white,

six chapters with approximately 15,000 words of text,

endnotes, bibliography, index,garden site maps,

and a chart of Chinese character translations.

US$55 (English version)

HK$300 (Chinese version—soft cover)