The zigzag bridge and lake-center pavilion in the Chinese garden in Pairi Daiza. [Phtoto provided to China Daily]

Chinese gardens

Domb said that since his childhood he has been fascinated by Chinese culture and inventions, his parents having displayed Chinese porcelain and Tang Dynasty (618-907) sculptures in their home. He also has a strong appreciation of Chinese silk and tea culture.

However, Domb says the idea of building a Chinese garden first occurred to him when he visited Montreal, Canada, in 1998, and marveled at the Chinese garden in the city. "Wow, this is beautiful," he said to himself.

When he contacted the Shanghai Institute of Landscape Design and Architecture, which designed and built the garden in Montreal, he found he was not taken seriously because he lacked official connections.

"But I was very stubborn," Domb said. His efforts paid off when the Shanghai company finally sent workers to build the Chinese garden in 2005.

After the first Chinese garden, Dream of Han Wu Di, was completed in 2006 as what was said to be the largest Chinese garden in Europe, Domb kept adding new elements. It finally took more than six years to complete the project.

"It's a discovery," he said of the entire process of building the Chinese gardens.

Domb has traveled to China every year since 2004, sometimes twice a year. He relished his trips to Suzhou to appreciate its traditional Chinese gardens, to Fujian to discover the tea culture, to Jingdezhen to search for Chinese porcelain and to Yixing for Chinese pottery.

He now describes employees of the Shanghai company as "no longer clients" but "real friends" and "good friends" who totally trust each other.

Domb was eager to tell of how he received a pair of giant pandas in February 2014 after just one and a half years of efforts while it usually takes at least 10 years for many zoos to do so. The sense of pride is all the more profound in that Pairi Daiza is one of the few private zoos outside China to house giant pandas.

He attributed the success to the Chinese gardens that had already been built in the zoo and his friendship with China's ambassador to Belgium from 2011 to 2014, Liao Liqiang, and Chinese people in general.

"I've worked for years with Chinese. I'm used to eating Chinese food and I'm used to drinking Chinese wine," he said, citing stinky bean curd and chicken feet as among his favorite Chinese cuisine and emptying a small cup containing baijiu, a hard liquor distilled from fermented sorghum, as one of his most enjoyable moments when he meets Chinese friends.