Night Cruise

 A couple of weeks ago, Kathy Hansen and I were invited to go for a night-time boat ride around Suzhou.  Kathy, if you remember, was visiting on a business trip from Indianapolis.  The invitation came from a couple of Suzhou colleagues - Jessie and Sherry.  Jessie, you may remember, had a wedding back in February.  Sherry has been my Chinese Guardian Angel...she brought me a hat and gloves when she thought it was too cold for me and brought me tea when she thought I was getting sick.

The old city of Suzhou is shaped like a knobby rectangle surrounded by a combination of river,canal, and moat.  In the old times, this waterway (along with the city walls that ran all around the inner banks) provided a formidable defense for the residents..  Today, the waterway is dotted by remnants of the wall on the city-side and flanked with parks along the outer perimeter. On this night, we took one of the many tourist boats that tours the West, South, and East sides of the city.

 The boat left at dusk.  The city lights were on full display and the views were quite nice.  Unfortunately, its not easy to get good photos when it's dark and your on a pitching, rolling motor boat.   Above and below are a couple of photos that came out looking ok....a bit like impressionist paintings, I think.

 Below is a photo of Jessie (at left), Kathy, and Sherry.   Our boat is in the background.

The Canals of Suzhou

Suzhou is sometimes called the "Venice of the East".  Mostly, it's called that by people in the tourist trade trying to tempt visitors to come spend money.   In fact, it is one of about 20 places that claim to be the "Venice of the East". 

Venice or not, it is definitely city of canals.  Before the canals, the area was probably a mosquito-infested marsh.  But long long ago it seems the people started digging the canals for drainage or for transportation or for defensive purposes.  The old city is encircled by canals and criss-crossed by canals and connected to the surrounding country side by canals.  Back in the day, these canals were the tributaries of a river of commerce that flowed from Suzhou up to the Yangtze river and into the interior of China.  The land around Suzhou was perfect for cultivating food and silk and tea.  The water was perfect for merchants to move these goods into the country for sale.  The big score came some 1500 years ago when the Grand Canal opened routes going further North, all the way up to Beijing.

Over time, politics and technology changed the world.  Now the real money is in the commerce flowing out of China instead of into China.   Shanghai is better positioned to play that game.  That's why, over the last 200 years, Shanghai has grown from nothing to the huge metropolis that it is today and left Suzhou behind as a quaint, old relic.   It's similar to the way Venice gradually lost it's mercantile leadership to Spain and England.

Like Venice, Suzhou may have lost its luster as a trading juggernaut....but it still has its canals.

Following are random canal photos.   Too many, I think.   I've gone overboard.   Ah well.  I wish that there were some better way to convey the unique personality of Suzhou and it's waterways.

Lost in Translation II

 A while back, I posted some of the stranger English signs that we've seen around town.  They're not exactly wrong....but not exactly right either.   Above is a sign in front of the Tiger Hill pagoda.  It makes me wonder if there are different classes of cultural relics....some are "Loving Care" and maybe some are so special they are "Tender Loving Care".

 Above is a sign that's outside the temple on Tiger Hill.  It's a tinderbox of a wooden building.  But rest assured that it is in no danger, because "fire is in a safe hand and we are in a safe world".

 Above is a signpost from the Couple's Retreat Garden.   "Caution:  The Rockery May Be Slippery".  It's actually perfectly acceptable English.  But it wins extra points for poetic expression.

Above is a sign that was also in the Couple's Retreat Garden.   It's the tourist information sign on one of the pavilions there - the "Balcony of No Frippery".   I was convinced this was a total mess-up until I looked it up and found that "frippery" is indeed a word.  So this one gets bonus points for the poetic elements and for vocabulary building.

 "Keep Your Steps Off the Plants".  Seriously.  Keep your dirty steps off of them.

 The signs above and below are from a health club near our temporary offices.  The one above says "Great moderation is a natural part of the better-most".   This is good advertising, since everyone wants the better-most out of life.

The one above says "The secret of being shape-up is facing to exercises".  Again, this is good advertising because all of us would like to be "shape-up".

Back to the Couple's Retreat for a Boat Ride

A couple of weeks back, Thresa and I went to the Couples Retreat Garden and PingJiang Street with Jeff, who was visiting from Indy.   That worked out so well that, just two weeks later, I took Kathy Hansen to the same spots during her visit.  The weather was much better the second time.   Hot as blazes, but no rain.  I won't bore you with too many photos, since they are nearly the same as the first visit...but with much better lighting.  

This time we took a canal boat ride.  At 10 RMB - or $1.50 U.S. - per person, we could forgive the dicey spelling on the signage.  The photo below shows our boatman.

And below, just for the fun of it, is this blog's first ever attempt at embedded video.  Kathy recorded this one on her camera.   The quality is not the best, but I hope it gives you a better appreciation for both the scenery and our boatman's singing voice.

The Pair of Pants

 Not too far away from our apartment - just across XingGang Street and South about a block - they are building a new building.   Two buildings actually.  But they will be joined at the top to form an archway...so maybe it should be counted as just one building.   When done, this will be the tallest building(s) in Suzhou.  I've heard it will be 90 stories tall.  That may not make it the tallest building in the world, but it will still be pretty doggone tall.

For the first couple months we were here, there was nothing happening at the construction site.   The towers had maybe 15 stories of steel erected, but there were no workers on the site.  Rumor was that the project had run into funding problems.   For the past couple of months, however, they've been working night and day.  Day and night you can see the flashes of the welders. The towers now poke into the sky significantly beyond the tops of our apartment building.  Someone must have found some money somewhere.

Officially, the building will be called the Gateway to the Orient. The locals have already settled on another name though.  They call it the "pair of pants".   That's because the architect's rendering, which is plastered all over the place, looks surprisingly like a pair of straight legged Levis.....but with windows instead of pockets.  The legs are square as if for an incredibly tall Sponge Bob.

The photo at top shows the construction site.  The photo immediately above is from a model in the Suzhou Planning Exhibition Center.  The model probably covers about 5000 square feet and depicts the government's future vision for Suzhou and the surrounding towns.  The Gateway to the Orient is shown as it will appear on the Suzhou skyline when finished. 

You have to admit, it does look like a pair of pants.

Just to put things in perspective, in the center, just in front of the trousers, you see the concrete expanse of the Rainbow walk.  Zapata's Tex-Mex restaurant would be along the thin strip of concrete to the left.  Just to the right of the Rainbow Walk, you can see the cluster of green that is Camphor Tree Park.  The buildings to the right of that, at the bottom right corner, make up the apartment complex that we live in.  You see them as a cluster of three or four short, stubby towers.  Those buildings are 22 stories tall.

Shan Tang Street

 I'm becoming a bus rider now.   When I first came to Suzhou, I moved around mostly by foot or by taxi.  This is not a bad way to get around, but it's often near impossible to find a taxi and you can only walk so far.  A while back, Theresa and I began trying out the bus lines.  Since there is no information available in English...at least that we can find...we've only been making short rides to destinations we know.  Suzhou has a gadzillion bus lines, which is why we've been mapping the bus stops ourselves.

 This slow and methodical method was working.  But recently, I had a big break through when I realized that Google Maps will show the bus stops if you zoom in close enough.  If you click on the little blue bus stop icons it will tell you all the buses which stop there and will also highlight all their routes.  So where before we had to go someplace first to take a picture of the bus stop, now all we have to do is find the location on Gooble maps, locate the closest bus stops, and click.

 So that long explanation of buses served a couple of purposes.  First, it advanced the plot line a little to let you know that we're getting a little braver and venturing further and further from home.  Second, I have nine pictures in the particular post and I need all the text I can to separate the photos.

So anyway, before I figured out the Google thing I decided I would take the 307 bus (which stops very near our apartment) to see where it goes to.  My map of the world ended at the Western edge of the Suzhou Industrial Park...but I new the bus went beyond that.  Terra Incognita and all that.  So one Saturday morning I just got on the bus and hunkered down for a long ride.

 As it turns out,the 307 is a magical bus route.  If I take it in one direction it will take me to work.  On this Saturday, taking it in the other direction, I found that it goes directly across the river into old Suzhou on GanJian Street, which is the main East-West route.  The first stop across the river is just a short walk to PingJiang road.  The second stop is just a short walk to the Drunken Chef, where we'd seen the Royal Wedding.   A couple of stops later it will drop you right in front of the pedestrian shopping area.

I didn't get off at any of those stops, though.  I stayed on the bus until it crossed over the river onto the West bank and turned North.  It dropped me off finally on the North-West corner of town near JinMen Gate.  JinMen Gate is the very top photo.  And actually, JinMen Gate is redundant because the word "Men"means gate.  "Jin" means gold.  So "JinMen" would be the Golden Gate...or something like that.

 Suzhou, you see, was a walled city back in the day.  JinMen was one of the heavily fortified gates by which non-violent folks could enter.  The other gates I know of are XuMen, PanMen, and FengMen.  The Internet suggests there are at least two more out there.   But that will be for another day. 

Just across the river from JinMen road you can follow ChangXu road Northward to the beginning of ShanTang Street.  ShanTang Street was built about 1200 years ago to provide a direct route from the city to the temple grounds at Tiger hill.  The street parallels a canal that also runs the same route of some 2 or 3 miles. Over time, the street became lined with houses and then crowded neighborhoods that thrived off the water and the travellers.  But 1200 years can weigh heavily.   So in the past few years, the city has pumped a bunch of cash into renovation of ShanTang Street and it's development as a modern tourist attraction.

The second photo shows the beginning of ShanTang Street, where the canal comes into the moat-river that surrounds the city of Suzhou.  This creates a little promontory that has been built up in with Disney-like reproductions of traditional Chinese buildings.   The third photo shows a temple that sits within this fake-but-accurate area.  From there, ShanTang street winds its way to the NorthWest as a narrow pedestrian street lined with tourist shops and street stands.

In addition to the normal stuff - silks, pearls, embroidery - there are quite a few stands selling small antiques.  Each stand seems to have the same or similar collection of little bronze Buddhas, old coins, opium pipes, and classic Chairman Mao paraphernalia.  The Mao stuff must sell well with foreigners because the vendors shouted after me "Look Chairman Mao! look Chairman Mao!"   Though the stuff looks old and authentic, the fact that each stand has similar stuff makes me think there is a factory up North churning out these antiques by the barge load.

In one of the stores selling rather nice watercolors the owner had a couple of caged birds.  One of them was a Myna bird, I think.   It could say "hello" (Ni Hao) and "welcome" (Huan Ying Guang Lin).  She offered to sell me the bird.   I wonder if there's a talking Myna bird factory too.

 After about a mile or so, the tourist traps begin to thin out and vendors seemed to be more concerned with local clientele than with the interlopers.  I suppose visitors don't normally want to stray that far from their tourist bus.  The Chairman Mao and faux-antique vendors are replaced with fruit sellers and vegetable stands and shoe repair stalls and such.   There are a lot fewer Western faces in the street too.

 If you take a turn onto the side streets it becomes even more......I'm not sure what the word is but perhaps authentic is the best choice.  This is a blue collar part of town and I suspect the average income is modest at best.  Everyone is out in the street for one of two reasons.  The neighborhood people are out trying to get some breeze and shade to escape the heat.  And the vendors are trying to make a little money anyway they can.   The vendor above is selling fresh chicken....very fresh chicken...to the afternoon shoppers.

 The stall in the photo above is selling dried beans.   I included this photo because the location is under a bridge.  If you look in the center-top you can see the concrete roof which supports the roadway above.   Underneath, the road noise is terrible and the ceilings drip with liquids unknown.   But there is evidently enough foot traffic to make it worthwhile for the vendors.  Also there is shade.  Capitalism, after all, requires consumers.  And in Suzhou in July, the consumers go where there is shade.

Bonsai - Penjing

In one section of the Humble Administrator's Garden they have a Bonsai nursery.  Or what I've always known as Bonsai.   Trees grown in a pot;  pruned and tortured into living art.  In China they're called Penjing.   And though they looks the same as the Japanese Bonsai there are differences.  Or so I've learned within the last 5 minutes by searching the Internet.

The nursery has a variety of specimens - maybe a hundred or more of all species, shapes, and sizes.  They are so crammed together that they don't photograph very well.  So I give you only one photo.

One of the Penjing in this collection is over 400 years old.  I'm not sure which one...odds are it's not the one in the photo.  Can you imagine, though, the dedication it takes to nurture a tree in a pot and keep it alive for over 400 years?   I can't even keep a houseplant alive for more than 6 months.