上有天堂， 下有苏杭

One of many bridges at West Lake (XiHu)

 Ok... it is a bit pretentious to go with an all-Chinese-character title for this post.  I don't speak the local language, and much less understand the complex characters used for writing.  This couplet, though, is famous here in China.  (Or at least it's purported by the local tourism bureaus to be famous.)  It's a bit of poetry.  Here's how you say it:

shàng yǒu tiān táng
xià yǒu sū háng

Like all Chinese poetry, there are multiple ways to interpret.  Here is one:

There is Heaven above. 
There are Suzhou and Hangzhou below.

Right now, we live in Suzhou.  In October, Theresa and I took a trip to Hangzhou with the EAS group.  (EAS is the Expats Association of Suzhou.  We've taken trips with them before, and they are always excellent.)   About 30-plus-or-minus folks went on this two day trip to see the other side of paradise.

A lotus pond on West Lake

To understand the Chinese fascination with Suzhou and Hangzhou, you first have to understand the love the Chinese have for their classical gardens.  The classical Chinese garden is an orchestrated balance of water and plants and stones and structures....too perfect for nature but painstakingly built to look perfectly natural.  The Chinese classical garden is Feng Shui and poetry and painting and Confucian philosophy mixed all together into one intoxicating experience.   The Chinese classical garden is also the embodiment of opulence; a pleasure that could only be afforded by the most filthy of the filthy rich.  The classical Chinese garden is both divine and carnal.  It's hidden spaces encourage both meditation and seduction.  It appeals to the Saturday night sinner and the Sunday morning saint.

A view from the lake on a stormy day

 Suzhou is well-known and much respected by the Chinese tourists for the many classical gardens within the city.  There are a couple of dozen, if not more.  You normally find a garden behind the walls of an old, family estate.  These gardens were originally private....intended for the enjoyment of a wealthy family and the guests invited to come into their compound.  Now the gardens are open to all who are willing to pay the admission fee.

Suzhou is respected by the Chinese.  Hangzhou is beloved.

Hangzhou is beloved because the entire city is as one, big, classical Chinese garden. XiHu, or the West Lake, is the water element of the garden.  Surrounding XiHu are the knobby mountains of ZheJiang province. They serve as the stone.  The remaining classical elements - the plants and structures - abound on the shores of XiHu.  You can walk for miles along the shores of XiHu and enjoy the site of pagodas and trees reflecting in the waters. In Hangzhou, nothing is hidden behind walls.   In Hangzhou, everyplace is within the garden.

Wind surfers in foreground.  Leifeng Pagoda in background.

 The city of Hangzhou is only about a two hour drive, by car or bus, from Suzhou.  I'd been there once before on business.  Theresa had never been.  So this was a first chance for both of us to see the city as tourists.

Hangzhou is also only about two hours away from Shanghai.  This is both a boon and a curse.  For the people of Shanghai, it is a boon to have a nearby place where they can escape the crowded, concrete sterility of their all-too-modern city.  For Hangzhou, though, it is a curse to have living nearby 20 million people who, on any given week-end, might all decide to drop in for a quick dose of "back-to-nature".  The week-end that we visited, the traffic around XiHu was horrific.

The North-East shore.  No Trees or hills.  Mostly apartments to house the six million residents.

 Suzhou and Hangzhou are approximately the same size.  Both have a population of around 6 to 7 million.  (add in a few million more migrant workers).  In Hangzhou, most of the citizens are concentrated in urban areas on Eastern shores of West Lake and they spill out behind that further East and North.  The North, West, and South shores of the lake are mostly green spaces.  These are criss-crossed with paths that lead to countless scenic spots .  Countless.  Places such as "melting snow at broken bridge" and "three pools mirroring the moon".  You could spend days exploring the paths and shores around the lake.

Hangzhou is good Fengshui

The scenic views of Hangzhou are not just recently famous.  They have been famous for hundreds of years.  So much so that the emperors in Beijing spent large sums to replicate the views of XiHu within the grounds of their summer palace.

Scenes through a circular window

 There is more to Hangzhou than just the West Lake.  The hills to the west of the lake are famous for the green tea that is grown there. (More on that later.)  To the North is the XiXi Wetlands park, where our EAS trip spent a good deal of time.  The wetlands area is a lot like the bayous of Louisiana.  It marshy and criss-crossed by a tangle of small streams.  In the old days, the folks there fished and farmed and mainly kept to themselves.  During the difficult years of the 1950s and 1960s, the area became a natural spot for a re-education camps....a place to send the political dissenters from large cities like Shanghai and Beijing.  A city-slicker trying to run-away from camp would be just as likely to drown in the marshes as escape.  (Ironic, that this supposed place of "heaven on earth" should serve as a swampland-prison.)

Bridges and Lilly Pads

That was thirty years ago.  The XiXi wetlands are now a place for tourists to take boat trips and to see the persimmon trees and the water-birds and the reconstructed farm houses.  The iron hand of central-control has given way to the soft hand of market-capitalism.  Re-education has become recreation.  I wonder how many former prisoners come to visit and relive the good-old-days in the camps.  Not many, I guess.

Ok, can't think of a good ending.  That's partly because we have a few more stories to tell.  Watch for a couple of more postings related to our Hangzhou trip.