ZHEJIANG PROVINCE
ZHEJIANG PROVINCE is the coastal province located south of Shanghai and the Yangtze Delta. Covering 100,000 square kilometers, it is home to 47 million people and the southern terminus of the Grand Canal. Zhejiang, is China's richest province. Both its rural residents and urban residents have the highest per capita income of any province in China. Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces are known as yu mi zhi xiang (“land of fish and rice”) after its good soil, water and climate.
There are specific areas in the province that specialize in certain products such as electric plugs, hinges, electric switches, faucets and florescent light bulbs. Wuyi produces 1 billion decks of playing cards a year. Forty percent of the world’s neckties are made in Shengzhou. Xiaxie specializes in jungle gyms. Shangguan churns out ping pong paddles. Fenshuo makes millions of pens. There are also places that specialize in razors and eyeglass frames.
The people of Zhejiang have long been known for their entrepreneurship and resourcefulness. Because it surrounded by mountains it has traditionally been neglected by the central government. The coastal areas in particular were neglected because the government thought they might be attacked so why waste money on them .This left the people of Zhejiang with little choice but to take care of themselves and become self-reliant, which they did this by pooling money in their families and community organizations known as a meng and starting businesses.
About 80 percent of all Zhejiang entrepreneurs have eight years or less of formal education. Many of their enterprises are financed through the regions famed informal network of private lending that allows them to bypass state-owned financial institutions. Much of the money is borrowed from friends, relatives and business associates at higher interest rates than those charged by banks. Many deals are sealed with only a handshake yet defaults are rare.
Some link the entrepreneurial inclination so the Zhejiang people to high number of Christians that live there and the development of a work ethic not unlike the Protestant work ethic in the United States.
PLACES NEAR SHANGHAI
Tong Li
Chongming Island (one hour from Shanghai) has been called the “Shangri-La of Shanghai” and the “last virgin island” in Yangtze. These days developers are quite excited about developing it after it was linked to the mainland by a new bridge that opened in October 2009. Fifty percent larger than Singapore, Chongming island is home to 700,000 people put is expected to grow to 2 million people by 2020. On the drawing boards are a Disney theme park, a replica of Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch and the “eco-city” of Dongtan, designed by a British firm. Before the bridge was built residents relied on 18 ferry routes to get them to the mainland. Two more bridges are planned.
Putuoshan (accessible from Shanghai, on a two-hours fast boat, 14-hour slow boat and from Ningbo) is a small island with a quiet unspoiled atmosphere, green rolling hills, nice beaches, and Buddhist temples. See Ningpo below. Web Site: Lonely Planet
Zhujiajiao and Zboushi are ancient river towns located in the vicinity of Dianshan Lake. Here you will find water and bridges everywhere. Boats pass right underneath the eaves of houses.
Thames Town (an hour from Shanghai in the suburb if Songjang) is an imitation English town complete with a pub, fish-and-chips shop, neo-Gothic church, Georgian- and Victorian-style terraced houses, English gardens and even a bronze statue of Winston Churchill. The town is part of $635 million development expected to house 10,000 people.
Tongli (an hour from Shanghai) is famous for its imperial mansions. Visitors wander through courtyards and gardens. Touching the trunk of the Health and Long Life Tree and circling a stone mosaic are said to bring career success.
Hangzhou
Zhejiang Province
Hangzhou (100 kilometers southwest of Shanghai) was described by Marco Polo as "the greatest city which may be found in this world." Known to the Chinese as "paradise on earth" is located near the mountains, at the head of Hangzhou Bay, and traditionally has been a favorite resort of the emperors. In the 13th century, it was the capital of the Song dynasty and was perhaps the largest city in the world with over a million people.
Hangzhou has long been regarded as a cultural center. In the 11th century, its governor was the famed Song-dynasty poet Su Dongpo, who presided over a scholarly class that whiled away their times participating in writing parties and hanging out in gardens and tea houses.
Hangzhou (also spelled Hangchow) was visited by Marco Polo "many times." He called it "the greatest city which may be found in this world" and wrote that it had a population of 1.5 million people, 15 times more than his native Venice.” He also wrote it had the "great quantity of rich palaces" and fine bath where "a hundred men or a hundred women can well bathe" and was graced by 10,000 bridges (a later traveler could only find 347).
Modern Hangzhou is an industrialized city with a million people and many its attractions tend to be tourist traps surrounded by noodle stalls and souvenir stands. Still it has wonderful places to escape and is very popular with Chinese tourists. There are beautiful temples, pavilions, hills and lakes. It also reportedly has the most beautiful women in China and is famous for silk weaving, sandalwood fans, vinegar fish, aromatic green teas, local lonjing tea, and Dragon Well tea.
Many of the tourist sites have intriguing name: the Cave of the Morning Mist and Sunset Glow and Running Tiger Dream Spring. The Park of Orioles Singing in the Willows is a Song dynasty garden; the Temple of Inspired Seclusion is surround by cliffs covered with religious symbols; and Yellow Dragon Cave is a man-made grotto carved into a cliff.
Few traces of Marco Polo's Hangzhou remain other than perhaps some of the canals with small bridges and houses with their front sides facing the water. Tourist visiting the city also take stop to see a stream pouring into the mouth of a dragon and take in a performance of Yue, a local musical form. Funnel-shaped Hangzhou Bay sometimes produces a tidal bore with 10-foot walls of water that rushes at speed of almost 10 mph with a loud roar (See Below).
Tourist Office: Hangzhou Tourism Administration, 484 Yan’an Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, tel. (0)-571-515-6617, fax: (0)- 571-515-2645 Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Maps: Lonely Planet Lonely Planet China Map Guide China Map Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: Hangzhou is accessible by air, bus and train. It is a little over an hour from Shanghai on a new fast train and is well connected to other main cities on China. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
West Lake
West Lake (west of Hangzhou) is known as one of the 10 best scenic spots in China. Surrounded by emerald hills on three sides, this large, calm blue lake is dotted with pavilions and moon bridges. According to some people the most serene spot is across the Crossing Rainbows bridge on an island called Three Pools Mirroring the Moon. A good time to come is on the morning when the lake is sometimes misty and people practice tai-chi. Solitary Hill is where the famous poet Bai Juyi was inspired to write many of his greatest poems. It also boasts a rich collection of cultural relics.
West Lake has been copied by copied by 35 other West Lake sin China. It is surrounded by teahouses, parks, and pagodas. Bikes can be rented. There are self-paddled boats and trips are offered in gondola-style boats.
Sights in Hangzhou: Hangzhou Provincial Museum (on the West Lake) is a former summer palace with live and mechanical fish. It also boast what may be the oldest samples of silk: some threads and knots dating back to 2,500 B.C. There is also a large silk factory in Hangzhou.
China Silk Museum (near West Lake) describes the 5,000 year history of silk. At Lonjing also on the shore of West Lake you can also visit the China Tea Museum. Located nearby in the Huqingyu Chinese herbal medicine shop, China's only Chinese Medicine Museum.
Six Harmonies Pagoda (on Yuelun Mountain) is one of China's most famous octagonal pagodas. Regarded as a masterpiece of Chinese architecture and built in A.D. 970, it is made of brick and wood and is almost 200 feet tall. From the outside it appears to have 13 stories but on the inside there are only seven. A stone staircase leads to the top, where there are beautiful views of the Qiantong River.
Qiantong River boasts the world's largest river bore (wave of tidal water). According to the Guinness Book of Records, the spring tides on Qiantong River produces a wave that can reach a height of 25 feet and a speed of 13-15 knots and be heard 20 kilometers away. This bore keeps large ocean-going vessels from entering the port.
Xihu State Hotel has 160 rooms. Mao stayed here more than 40 times. The suite were Nixon and Kissinger stayed in 1972 goes for $180 a night. Other rooms go for between $45 and $95.
Thousand Islands Lake is a 580-square-kilometer reservoir on the upper reaches of the Xin'an River. There are scores of scenic spots on the 1078 islands located in the reservoir. On the shores are the Lesser Stone Forest and Fengping Hill.
See Shanghai
Ningpo
Waiting for a steamship in the 1920s
Ningpo (160 kilometers south of Shanghai) lies in the heart of industrial area of eastern Zhejiang Province. It is home to 5.3 million people and is quickly rising to the status of a first tier Chinese city. Ningpo experienced an extraordinary spurt of growth of 14 percent a year over the past decade.
Jonathan Franzen wrote in The New Yorker, “It seemed to me every inch of greater Ningpo was under construction or reconstruction simultaneously. My extremely new hotel had been built in the rear yard of a merely very new hotel, a few feet away. The roads were modern by heavily divoted, as if it were understood that they would all be torn up again soon anyway. The countryside seethed with improvement; in some villages it was hard to find a house that didn’t have a pile of sand or a stack of bricks in front of it. Farm fields were sprouting factories while, outside the less new factories, the support columns of coming viaducts went up behind scaffolds. The growth rate that Ningpo had sustained...quickly became exhausting just to look at it.”
Web Sites:Lonely Planet Lonely Planet Map: China Maps China Maps S Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: is accessible by a new bridge from Shanghai. See Hangzhou Bay Bridge Below. Lonely Planet (click Getting There) Lonely Planet
Putuo Mountain (reached by hydrofoil from Ningbo) is a national park and one of China's four most famous Buddhist mountains. There are numerous historical relics on the beautiful mountain which sits in the sea. The three main temples are constructed in the style of the early Qing dynasty.
Hangzhou Bay Bridge
Hangzhou Bay Bridge (connecting Shanghai with Ningbo) is the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge. Opened in May 2008, just before the Olympics, it stretches 36 kilometers across Hangzhou Bay and was built at a cost $1.7 billion, most of which was covered by the Ningpo government which has mapped out a new industrial zine immediately to the east of the bridge. The longest bridge in the world is the 38.4-kilometer-long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway outside New Orleans.
The new bridge has has reduced the travel distance and time between Shanghai and Ningpo from 300 kilometers and four hours to 120 kilometers and 2 ½ hours. The bridge has a six-lane roadway that permit vehicles to travel at speed up to 100kph. To help drivers combat monotony, every five kilometers the color of the railings change.
Construction of the S-shaped Hangzhou Bay Bridge began in June 2003 and is seen as key to moving goods between two of China’s most important ports—Ningpo and Shanghai—and developing the Yangtze Delta area. The entire project also includes the construction of a large container port. Web Sites : Hangzhou Bay Bridge official site Hangzhou Bay Bridge ; Wikipedia Wikipedia ; China Page ChinaPage.com
Yiwu
Yiwu (320 kilometers southwest of Shanghai) is the home of International Trade City, a giant wholesale market with 60,000 wholesale vendors who sell 400,000 items in 1,700 categories to buyers from 180 nations. Most of the items are inexpensive manufactured goods and general consumer merchandise. Around 1,000 container-loads of goods are shipped out of the city very day. Many goods sold at $1 shops are bought by wholesale buyers from here.
Located in the middle of nowhere, a 160 kilometers from the coast, the market contains so many stalls that it has been estimated that if you visit one shop every minute eight hours a day you’ll need two months to visit them all. Yiwi’s slogan is “a sea of commodities, a paradise for shoppers.” Deal made here affect retail prices around the globe.
About 7,000 foreign businessmen have set up shop in the city. Many of them are Iraqis and other Middle Easterners. For them a former clothing factory has been turned into a mosque. In a district called “Exotic Street” you can find Egyptian, Jordanian and Iraqi restaurant, women in head scarves, and men sitting in street drinking tea and eating kebabs.
Peter Hessler wrote in National Geographic: “traders come from all over the world to buy in bulk. There’s a scarf district. A plastic bag market, an avenue where every shop sells elastic. If you’re burned out on buttons take a stroll down Binwang Zipper Professional Street....Yiwu attracts so many Middle Eastern traders that one neighborhood has become home to 23 large Arabic restaurants, as well as a Lebanese bakery.”
Yiwu was a rural village until the 1980s. Conveniently linked by rail and road to the parts of Ningpo and Shanghai, it took off in 1982 when local authorities set up an open-air market there that is now the “world’s largest whole sale market.”
Yiwu now has a population of over 1 million who live mostly in endless rows of new apartment blocks.
Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: Yiwu is accessible by train from new train station that opened in 2006, by bus and by air (it has its own airport). Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: Wenzhou is accessible by air, bus and train. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
Wenzhou
Wenzhou (350 kilometers south of Shanghai) is a coastal city in Zhejiang not far from Taiwan. It is ground zero for Zhejiang entrepreneurship. In 2006, 130,000 private businesses earned 96 percent of the city output revenue and paid 70 percent of its taxes. By contrast state-owned enterprises generated only 3 percent of Wenzhou’s industrial output, compared to a national average of 10 percent. Most of the companies in Wenzhou are family-owned and were started without government help. The city has been so successful that the “Wenzhou model” is now held up as the model for which other cities are expected to emulate.
Wenzhou produces light industry goods such as textiles, shoes and sundry goods. It is the lighter capital of the world. There are more than 500 companies making lighters, accounting for 80 percent of China’s metal lighter production. Ninety percent of them are exported, mainly to European countries. Wenzhou is also home to 4,000 shoemakers that account for one forth ‘of China’s shoe production. It is also major producer of sex toys.
The average income of Wenzhou is $3,000 (2007), almost double the national average. Buildings are going up at a rapid pace, with gated communities for the wealthy opening up in the suburbs. One worker at a shoe factory told Smithsonian magazine: “Wenzhouese work harder than anyone else in China.” Many of the wealthiest people are Christians.
JIANGSU PROVINCE
Jiangsu Province JIANGSU PROVINCE is the most densely populated and agriculturally productive region of China. Located near Shanghai and encompassing much of the Yangtze River Delta, it occupies a small fraction of China's territory yet it is home to a large portion of its population. Supporting all these people is some of the China's most fertile land: much of it on a plain built by rich, productive silt deposited over the millennium by Yangtze River floods. Crisscrossing the plain is dense network of canals and waterways, where houses have traditionally been bunched up along the waters edge and backed by a patchwork of long narrow fields. Jiangsu is a relatively rich province. Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces are known as yu mi zhi xiang (“land of fish and rice”) after its good soil, water and climate. Tourist Office: Jiangsu Tourism Bureau, 255 North Zhongshan Rd, 210003 Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, tel. (0)-25-342-1333, fax: (0)- 25-334-3960.
Yangtze Delta is 200 miles wide and laced with canals. Shanghai is in the southern side of it and Nanking is on the west side and kind of marks its beginning. It was originally a wetland then a rich agricultural area and now is being developed very quickly. Some Chinese geographers claim that the Yangtze River Delta is the most productive agricultural land in the world, and getting more productive all the time as new paddy soil is created.
The delta has a few protected areas left. In some places there are cities, In others there are factories. Place that have been urbanized or industrialized are full of fish farms and vegetable fields. Areas that are filled with reed also have roads and trucks that are used to carry the reed out. Yancheng Reserve in the Yangtze Delta is home to red-crowned cranes, reed parrotbills. Oriental storks and the world’s last 2,000 or so black-faced spoonbills. Web Site: Wikipedia Wikipedia
Nanjing (Nanking)
Jiangsu mapNanjing (also known as Nanking, around a 240 kilometers west of Shanghai) has been the site of many important historical events. After the Mongols were driven out in the 14th century, it was the capital of China for about 50 years. It was selected because it was less vulnerable to attacks by horsemen than cities further north. In the 1860s, the Taiping rebellion was centered in Nanjing and ultimately defeated there.
What most people know it for is the Rape of Nanking. In 1937, the Japanese army attacked Nanjing to gain control of its important port and knock out a large contingent of the Chinese army, in the process committing horrible acts. They gang raped young women, butchered Chinese men and cut open pregnant women and had their pictures taken next to the fetuses. No one how many Chinese were killed but scholars estimate that between 140,000 and 300,000 troops and unarmed civilians died.
Today Nanjing is a is a pleasant tree-filled, industrial city with 5.5 million people. There isn't all that much to see and the city can be oppressively hot in the summer. A large contingent of foreign students is studying Chinese at the Nanjing University and Nanjing Normal University. Nanjing Bridge is a favorite suicide spot. By one estimate more than 1,000 have leapt to their deaths from it.
Nanjing was the home of the great Chinese eunuch explorer Cheng Ho. A new $50 million museum dedicated to him opened a few years ago. His "tomb" is empty because he died during his last voyage and was buried at sea.
Tourist Office: Nanjing Tourism Administration, 4 Nandongguashi, 210024 Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, tel. (0)-25-360-8901, fax: (0)- 25-77101959 Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Maps: Lonely Planet Lonely Planet China Map Guide China Map Guide ; Joho Maps Joho Maps Subway Map : Urban Rail, net Urban Rail
Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint
Getting There: Nanjing is accessible by air, bus and train. It is less than two hours from Shanghai on a new fast train and is on the main Beijing-Shanghai rail line and well connected to other cities in China. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
Linggu Pagoda
Nanjing Memorial is built on a former mass grave where 8,000 bodies were exhumed. Opened in 1985, it contains galleries, exhibits, walkways on rough granite blocks, and beds of stones representing the dead. The galleries display photographs taken by Japanese of Japanese soldiers holding up severed heads, placing their feet on dead women and babies, and standing besides dead people hung from ropes as the were prized fish. There are also pictures of rape victims begging for mercy.
Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum honors the great Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Situated in a lovely forested suburb of Nanjing on the slope of Zhongshan Hill, it is comprised of 392 granite steps lead up to huge marble reclining statue of Sun Yat-sen, under which he is buried. The entire mausoleum covers over 80,000 square meters and the structures is arranged in the form of a freedom bell.
Soul Valley Temple (two kilometers from the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum) was originally built in A.D. 514. It is home of the famous Beamless Hall, a 70-foot-high brick building made without any beams or wood. Other attractions at the temple complex include Sighing of the Wind in the White Pines Pavilion and the Linggu Pagoda.
Qinhuai River (flowing for five kilometers through the southern part of Nanjing) was famous from the 14th to the early 20th century for its restaurants, brothels, and beautiful lantern boats. This part of Nanjing has recently been restored. Along its banks is the Temple of Confucius, a popular cultural center that sometimes hosts local kunju drama, tea houses, shops and inns. One can try over 200 different kinds of food at the local snack bars.
Other Sights in Nanjing include a few gates from the Ming City Wall, the ruins of a Ming Palace, the Bell Tower (with a large bell cast in 1368), Chaotian Temple, Taiping Museum, and the Jade Workshop (employs 60 carvers who mostly work soapstone and coral). Nanjing Museum has a fine collection of Ming and Qing Dynasty porcelain. At the Hongshan Forest Zoo you can see a roller-skating parrot.
Grand Canal
Grand Canal (between Hangzhou in the south and Beijing and Tianjin in the north) is largest ancient artificial waterway in the world and an engineering marvel on the scale of the Great Wall of China. Begun in 540 B.C. and completed in A.D. 1327, it is 1,107 miles long and has largely been dug by hand by a work force described as a "million people with teaspoons." The world's longest modern canal, the Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Canal in Russia, is 1,410 miles long.
The Grand Canal was created by connecting a series of smaller canals built in separate areas. It was constructed primarily to move troops from the north to south and transport food from the rich agricultural lands in the south to overpopulated cities and towns in the north. It was also built to allow merchants to avoid transporting their cargoes on the high seas where they were vulnerable to typhoons and pirates.
The Grand Canal extends from Tianjin in the north to Hangzhou in the south. It connects Beijing and Xian in the north with Shanghai in the south, and links four great rivers—the Yellow, the Yangtze, Huai and Qiantang. Water levels have been maintained through a system of stone gates which channel water in and out of the canals. When it is necessary to prevent flooding gates can be opened so that water can be diverted into lakes.
Construction of the canal has been done in a piecemeal fashion over the centuries, with new sections added and others abandoned and rebuilt. The bulk of the work was done during the Sui dynasty under the leadership of the ruthless emperor Yang Di, who put 5.5 million workers to work during a six year period, ending to 610 A.D. No one knows how may died digging the canals but it was probably in the tens of the thousands. During the height of the Tang dynasty, which followed the Sui Dynasty, long strings of barges carried 100,000 tons of grain a year from the rice fields in the south to the north.
Canal in Zhejiang
The great Mongol leader Kublai Khan put three million people to work in 1279 to extend the Grand Canal 135 miles to north so that rice could be transported from the fertile Yangtze Delta, near Shanghai, to his new capital, present-day Beijing. When the canal was finished Chinese junks could travel inland across the country—a journey that sometimes took a year or more—instead of venturing out onto the open sea.
While traveling on the Grand Canal in the 13th century, Marco Polo wrote about porcelain and silk and wine made from rice. "There are very great merchants who do great trade...they have silk beyond measure." For a pittance you could buy "the most beautiful vessels of porcelain large and small." Describing how grain-carrying barges and junks were pulled northward by horses tethered to long harnesses, he wrote, "The magnificent work is deserving of admiration; and not so much from manner in which it is conducted through the country, or its vast extent, as from its utility and the benefit produces to those cities which lie in its course."
After railroads were built in China, the canal was not longer vital to transport goods. Some sections fell into disuse and others were silted up by flooding, drained for irrigation or blocked by dams. The rate of decay has increased in the last couple of decades and it estimated that one only a third of what was open in the 1960s is open today. In 1980, the tourist appeal of the canal was realized and sections of were dredged to make way for "dragon boat" barges filled with tourists dressed like members of the imperial court.
Today about half of the canal between Beijing and Hanhzhou is navigable after the spring and summer rains. The sections between Beijing and Tianjin, the Yellow River and Peixan, and the Yellow River to Tianjin are all silted over.The sections of the canal that have water deep enough to accommodate boats are often filled with trash sewage and oil slicks. Chemical waste and fertilizer and pesticide run-off empties into the canal. The water is mostly brownish green. People who drink it often get diarrhea and break out in rashes.
Canal trips are offered south of the Yangtze but many tourist complain that the boats and the canal are filthy. Some sections are still quite busy. In the town of Suzhou, for example, snake-like processions of barges, a half mile long wait their turn to pass through a lock. In other places the pea-soup-colored water is filled with small boats carrying cement, sand, rolls of steel wire.
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Huai'an (on the Grand Canal) is the birthplace of Zhou Enlai.
Yangshan Stone Tablet (22 kilometers from Nanjing) is a massive 31,000-ton monument the size of skyscraper. Located in an imperial quarry set among hills and canyons, it was created by the Emperor Yongle in the 15th century to honor his father, the founder of the Ming Dynasty.
The idea was to create the world's largest monument in three parts: a base, stale and cap, that together would have stood 25 stories high. Thousands of workers spent years carving the stone from the mountain at great expense but ultimately the project was never completed because no one could figure out a way to move the stones (even today it can’t be done).
Very few people visit the site. There is a $1 admission charge but often there is no one in the ticket office. About a half mile from the ticket office is house-size rock intended to be the base on the monument. A little further is a similar-sized rock intended to be the cap. The tablet itself is little farther, still partly connected a hillside. It is possible to walk on top of it. Not far away is a Ming tomb area, where the monument was supposed to go.
Yangzhou
Yangzhou (80 kilometers east of Nanjing at the junction of the Grand Canal and Yangtze River) is where Marco Polo served as governor for three years (See History, Silk Road, Marco Polo in China) and is on the Grand Canal. Today, Yangzhou is home to 800,000 people. There are some canals and gardens worth a look.
Yangzhou Jade Carving Factory is one of the last authentic jade carving centers in China. The factory still keeps five-foot treadles so that some of the artisans can create pieces, such as famous "jade mountains," using slow traditional methods. Even though numerous items are created from jadeite, the majority are made with other kinds of stone. It may not be there anymore.
Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Map: China Highlights China Highlights Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Getting There: is accessible by bus and minibus to neighboring cities. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
Peixian (a town in Jiangsu province about midway between Beijing and Shanghai) is located in the heart of the dog-eating region of China. People here regularly eat dog soup, pulled dog meat sandwiches and dog stew and are particularly fond of starting their day with a breakfast of hot soy milk and a pieces of oily, red dog wrapped in a pita-like flat bread.
About 300,000 dogs are raised for food. About half are for local consumption. The other are exported to other parts of China and to Korea. Turtle-flavored, hand-pulled dog meat is a local specialty. It can purchased in boxes or vacuum-sealed plastic in gift shops and at the airport in nearby Xuzhou. Portraits of collies, spaniels and beagles are found throughout the town.[Source: Craig S. Smith, New York Times, July 7, 2001] Web Site: Travel China Guide (click attractions) Travel China Guide
Suzhou canals
Suzhou
Suzhou (100 kilometers upstream from Shanghai) has been called the "Venice of the East." Among the most pleasant places in China, the old town features a network of canals, silk manufacturing, old houses, stone bridges, lovely gardens and whitewashed buildings.
Suzhou (pronounces soo-joe) is an ancient river port and part of the Grand Canal system. Marco Polo visited the town in 1276 and wrote it had 6,000 canals. A later traveler could only find 290. In the 1860s, Suzhou was the base of Taiping Rebellion, an uprising led by Hong Xiuquan, a deranged peasant who believed he was Christ's younger brother. The city museum was the former home of the Taping general Li Xiucheng. Relics from the rebellion are displayed in a courtyard.
Suzhou is not just a tourist town. On the whole it is a typical drab, dirty Chinese city with 4.5 million people. Half the canals were filled during the Communist reconstruction. The grand moat that once surrounded the old city is also gone except for a few sections around some bridges. The remaining half are fetid and filled with debris.
Almost 100 Fortune 500 companies have a presence in Suzhou, taking advantage of its nearness to Shanghai. Old houses and neighborhoods are being flattened on an almost daily basis to make room for new development. The famous architect I.M. Pei, a native of Suzhou, is currently a leading campaign to preserve and restore the city's architectural and natural treasures. Part of this effort includes dredging the canals and pumping fresh water into them from nearby Lake Taihu. Pei himself is supposed to design a new museum next to property confiscated from his family.
Tourist Office: Suzhou Municipal Tourism Administration, 115 Shiquan St., 215006 Suzhou, Jiangsu China, tel. (0)- 512-521-2987, fax: (0)- 512-521-2980 Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Wikipedia Wikipedia Maps: Lonely Planet Lonely Planet China Map Guide China Map Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There : Suzhou is 39 minutes from Shanghai on a new fast train. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide
Suzhou's Gardens
Gardens were laid during the Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties and restored after the Cultural Revolution when they were destroyed because flowers were deemed reactionary and gardeners were considered capitalist tools. Some of Suzhou's gardens have a reputation for being poorly maintained and full of weeds and Chinese package-tour groups. Some people feel this reputation is undeserved.
The gardens have been built and rebuilt many times and altered to such an extent so they are no longer Yuan or Ming gardens any more. Many are meandering and asymmetrical. The classic gardens all contain pavilions and houses that open to courtyards, ponds, orchards, "mountain" scenes and evil-spirit-tricking features such as dead ends and unexpected destinations.
Flowering plants and trees include osmanthus, canna lilies, salvias, lotus, and peonies. They each bloom in their own season. Peonies, for example, bloom in April. There are also lots of pruned and carefully maintained bamboo, banana and gingko trees. The gardens are famous for their stones, which have been placed in rivers to be sculpted naturally by flowing water and time.
The gardens in Suzhou are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. About 15 gardens, most of them located within the roughly one-square mile old city, are open to the public. Admission is about $2. The gardens are open from 9:00am to 5:00pm. From 6:00am to 8:00am they are open for free for exercise. Web Sites: China.org China.org Suzhou government Suzhou UNESCO World Heritage Site Map: (click 1001wonders.org at the bottom): UNESCO Also try the UNESCO World Heritage Site Web site (click the site you want) World Heritage Site Book : The Chinese Garden by Maggie Keswick (St. Martin's Press).
Garden of the Humble Administrator
Garden of the Humble Administrator (Zhou Zheng Yuan) is one of the four most famous gardens in China. Built in 1522 A.D., it covers an area of about four hectares, three fifths of which is water. All of the major buildings are placed on the shores of ponds or streams. What makes this garden interesting are the fantastically shaped stones that are placed harmoniously among the gardens temples and plants.
The artist-poet Chen-Ming immortalized the garden in his poems and paintings and may have helped designed it. "Peak Above the Clouds" is reported to be the largest single piece of rock ever hauled from a lake. Nanmu Hall is known for its spaciousness and the garden as a whole provides "a changing scene at every turn."
The oldest and most interesting part of the garden is on the west side. Here there are many pavilions, where you can relax and enjoy a picnic. Susan Rowland wrote in the New York Times, "Among the architectural tricks in this sprawling garden are a covered walkway where one wall is flat and the other zigzags, rooftops that resemble a mountain range and an ancient tunnel that leads to a show of flower arrangements if you turn left or to a ledge over a pond if you walk straight.
"There is large pond , filled with lotus, their leaves constantly moving like prairie grass: a hill of tree peonies...a covered bridge; an art gallery; a music room; and in the east section, the only lawn I ever saw in China."
Lion Forest Grove is a garden once owned by the family of the architect I.M. Pei and repurchased by the Peis in the 1980s. It features a roofed walkway, eroded stones from Tai Lake, chosen for their resemblance to lions, a ridge and a stone boats. Originally designed by the 14th-century painter Ni Tsan it now looks like a jumbled English garden with some Chinese touches. Pei credits Suzhou as influencing his style.
Couple's Garden (Old Yuan Garden) is one of the most pleasant gardens in Suzhou. Begun in the early Qing Dynasty in the 17th century and not restored since the 19th century, it features wonderful old buildings and galleries, a small canal that leads to the Grand Canal and natural slightly unkempt gardens. This gardens is not on most group itineraries and is often empty.
Master of Nets garden
Master of Nets Garden (the Wang Shi Yuan) is the oldest and smallest garden in Suzhou and in the eyes of many its most charming. Originally built in 1140, it is the home of the splendid Cold Spring Pavilion, which has been replicated in Astor Court in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The garden covers less than an acre but is filled with cleverly arranged secret ceramic pot gardens and courtyards. In the main courtyard are bamboo groves, a pond and replicas of mountains. The garden was saved from the marauding Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution, it is said, by orders from Premier Zhou Enlai.
Other Gardens include Lingering Garden (1525), the home of a perfectly placed stone called Cloud-Capped peak; Blue Waves Pavilion (12th century), on the banks of a canal; Western Garden, more of a temple than a garden; and the Garden of Pleasure, built in the late 1800s.
Other Sights in Suzhou include Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute, with an artist who makes extraordinary animal designs on silk screens; and Cold Hill Temple, with a cute little yellow pagoda, the famous bell of Hanshan temple and an archive of Buddhist scriptures.
One of the most popular destinations is 150-foot, octagonal leaning brick pagoda on Tiger Hill. Reached by s steep climb up a man-made hill, the pagoda was built in A.D. 961 and is often described as a tiger's tail. Tiger Hill is also the home of the Hall of the Broken Beam, the Honest Spring and the Sword Testing Stone. Local people like to sit on the boulders and do tai chi in the open spaces.
Around 280 wedding dress shops are concentrated in a 200-meter stretch off the main street and back streets off the Suzhou Huqiu Hunsha Market in a suburb of Suzhou. Brides from all China flock to try on dresses that sell for about half of what they do in Shanghai.
Canal Towns Near Suzhou
Julie Wan, Washington Post, “ To visit these rustic, preserved canal towns is to be transported back into history, but in many ways it's also a chance to experience a Chinese holiday. We notice that nobody speaks a word of English here, and we see only one or two other foreign faces around. In a nation of 1.3 billion people, with an emerging middle class for whom traveling internationally is still both expensive and bureaucratically difficult, spots like these make the perfect domestic getaway. Add to that the nostalgia for a way of life that's fast disappearing beneath jutting skyscrapers and newly paved roads all around the country, and it's easy to understand the lure of the canal town. [Source: Julie Wan, Washington Post, February 11, 2011]
Even though many sections of the Grand Canal have silted over, remnants of an ancient way of life still linger in these towns. Our hotel owner tells us that her family has lived here for at least five generations and probably more, though no one remembers who was the first descendant to arrive.
Zhouzhuang draws more than 2.5 million visitors each year and has been dubbed both the "Venice of the East" and the "Number One Water Town in China." It has become so touristy that purists no longer consider it authentic. When we asked a local friend for a canal-town recommendation, her advice was emphatic: "The water town I recommend is called Xi Tang," she wrote in an e-mail. "The one I do not recommend is Zhou Zhuang."
Zhouzhuang remained largely undiscovered until the 1980s, when a New York gallery owner presented a Chinese painting of the canal town Zhouzhuang to then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping as a gift. The town immediately became a household name in China. Since then, the whole country has been swept by a canal-town craze, and millions of Chinese tourists have flocked to the dozen or so of these rustic floating villages in the Yangtze River Delta.
Xitang
Julie Wan wrote in the Washington Post, “One glimpse of the waterfront houses in the canal town of Xitang, and every Chinese scroll painting I'd ever seen as a child suddenly made sense. It was all there: the arching stone bridges, the tiled rooftops, the red lanterns strung from the eaves, even the boatman paddling down the river. ..Xitang just oozes kitschy charm and old-world scenery. Trinket shops and willow trees line the pathway along the canal; tables and stools for sipping tea and dining crowd the water's edge; and on the other side, centuries-old homes have been turned into guesthouses with back terraces overlooking the canal. [Source: Julie Wan, Washington Post, February 11, 2011]
One of the smaller water towns, only a little more than half a square mile in size, Xitang has a historic center that consists of one main thoroughfare along the water, with dozens of tight alleys snaking off it. The town boasts more than 100 of these lanes, the narrowest of which, Shipi Lane, is only three feet wide - not even enough room to stretch out your arms.
As we walk through the alleys, a certain canal-town street fare becomes unavoidably evident. I immediately pick up on the heavy scent of stinky tofu, that fermented street snack that I first sampled in Taiwan and that I now enthusiastically tell people tastes much better than it smells. Naturally, we stop to buy a serving with hot sauce from a woman at a corner who is also selling chicken gizzards and other bits of skewered meat marinating in a spiced soy sauce.
I'm impressed to see that beyond these souvenirs and snacks, Xitang has retained much of its historic environment. The stone slab buildings and shingled roofs have been preserved from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. The town almost looks unreal, like a Hollywood stage set or a theme park. In fact, not long ago, Xitang served as one of the backdrops for the movie "Mission Impossible III," a distinction that no doubt contributed to the town's rise in popularity and is now enshrined on a billboard staked at an embankment.
Among the canal towns, Xitang is distinctive for its long covered corridor, which formed over the years as rooftops were connected into one long patchwork of awning to provide shelter from heavy rain. The covering now stretches more than half a mile along the canal, which is part of the much larger Grand Canal, a 1,103-mile waterway that runs from Beijing south to Hangzhou and served for centuries as one of China's main trade arteries.
Canal Towns Between Hangzhou and Suzhou
In between Hangzhou and Suzhou there are about 200 small towns connected by a web of canals. The main products have traditionally been silk and grain that were moved around on the water. In towns such as Wuzen many people still live in traditional houses that face the water and are connected by small stone bridges that cross the canals and streets paved with stone slabs. People get around in car-size, bamboo-roofed boats powered by a single oar connected to a stick.
Many of the towns declined in te 20th century but have been revived in recent years in part to make them tourist attractions. Seven of the towns—including Wuzen, Nanxun, Huzhou and Mudu—have been singled out for their beauty and charm. Nanxun is the home of Lius, a wealthy family that made their fortune in the silk trade and built a private library with 600,000 volumes, flanked by a lovely garden called “Little Lotus.” Huzhou (near Naxun) is known for the East-meets-West architecture of the villas where the town’s rich lived. Worth checking are the imported stained glass and the European-style dance hall.
Wuzhen (one hour from Suzhou and Hangzhou) is the home town of Mao Dun, one of China’s most famous writers, Jin Yong (Louis Chan), the titan of martial arts fiction, and the romantic poet Xu Zhimo. Wuzhen literally means “Black Town,” a reference to the color scheme of the white and black houses and the color of the boats. It is a charming place. Some of the houses are open to the public and feature displays of crafts and trades such as wine brewing, cloth dying, and furniture making. A tourist show is staged in the main square. Web Site: Travel China Guide (click attractions) Travel China Guide ; Lonely Planet Lonely Planet
Mudu Mudu (half hour from Suzhou) literally means “clogged with wood.” the name recalls a famous story that took place 2,500 year ago in which a king of a the defeated kingdom of Yue sought revenge against the king of the kingdom of Wu by secretly training a beautiful girl named Xi Shi to be his concubine. Charmed by Xi Shi, the king of Wu let his defenses down enabling he king of Yue to exact his revenge. In any case, the king of Wu is said to have built a beautiful palace on a hill that required so much wood it clogged the river where Mudu now stands. Today the town is known mainly for its many private gardens. The palace for Xi Shi no longer exists but a monument on the hill is dedicated to her. Web Site: Travel China Guide (click attractions) Travel China Guide ; Lonely Planet Lonely Planet
Lingyin Temple (16 kilometers from Suzhou) is one of the best known Buddhist monasteries in China. Built in A.D. 326 at the foot of Lingyin Mountain, the temple's 100-foot-high main hall is the tallest one-story building with double eaves in China. Inside it is a 60-foot-high camphor wood Buddha. In front of the hall are two stone pagodas. In back of it are high trees and mountains which contain amusing stone inscriptions and statues.
Zhenjiang
Zhenjiang (150 kilometers northwest of Shanghai) is a city in Jiangsu Province not Zhejiang Province. Zhenjiang Serículture Institute is China's main silk agricultural center. It has 300 different kinds of silk worm. Pearl Buck's Residence in Zhenjiang was renovated to honor the 100th anniversary of her birthday in 1992.
Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There:Zhenjiang is a about 1½ hours from Shanghai on a new fast train and is well connected to other main cities on China. Not all trains that pass through the city stop there. Lonely Planet (click Getting There) Lonely Planet
Jiaoshan Hill (3 northeast of Zhenjiang) stands right in the middle of the Yangtze river. Often called the floating jade hill, it is the home of Jingshan Temple. Because the two seem to merge into one, it is often described as the "temple that embraces the hill." At the top of the hill is the 30 meter high Cishou pagoda and the "Keep the Clouds" pavilion. Also found on this island are rock carvings and stele forests.
Wuxi and Lake Tai
Wuxi (100 kilometers northwest of Shanghai) is China’s six largest industrial city with a population of 5.8 million people. In recent years it has become an economic boom town and is home to much of China’s chemical industry. The economy there expanded from 2.5 million yuan in 1978 to 330 billion yuan ($44 billion) in 2006. Half the city residents are employed by its 5,300 factories. Wuxi abuts part of Lake Tai was famous its lakeside gardens. Wuxi is a very dirty city. In the summer the 38-degree C air makes it almost impossible to breathe.
Tourist Office: Wuxi Municipal Tourism Bureau, 7 Xinsheng Rd, 214002 Wuxi, Jiangsu China, tel. (0)- 510-270-4314, fax: (0)- 510-270-3851Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Maps: China Map Guide China Map Guide Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: Wuxi is a about one hour from Shanghai on the new fast train and is well connected to other main cities on China. Not all trains that pass through the city stop there. Lonely Planet (click Getting There) Lonely Planet
Lake Tai (near Wuxi on the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces) is China's third largest freshwater lake. Lying at the center of China’s ancient “land of fish and rice,” it covers an area of 2,420 square kilometers and has 400 kilometers of coastline and is home more 60 kinds of fish and other aquatics products. The lake was once was once part of the ocean but now it is filled with freshwater and freshwater fish. Over the years parts of the lake have been reclaimed by fish ponds and rice patties.
Lake Tai (known in Chinese a Taihu) has traditionally been very popular with Chinese tourists. It traditionally has been famous as the source of the “three whites”—white shrimp, whitebait and whitefish, plus a freshwater crustacean delicacy known as hairy crab. It waters irrigate fields via man-made streams. Goods have traditionally been moved on canals from the lake to Shanghai and other places in the Yangtze Delta.
Today, Lake Tai is often choked with industrial waste, urban sewage and agricultural run-off and sometimes is covered with green algae as a result of nitrogen and phosphate pollution. Locals complain of polluted irrigation water that causes their skin to peal, dyes that turn the water red and fumes that sting their eyes. Fishing has been banned since 2003 because of pollution. In the summer of 2007, large algae blooms covered parts of Lake Tai and Lake Chao, China’s third and fifth largest freshwater lakes, making the water undrinkable and producing a terrible stench.
Near Wuxi on the northern shore of the lake are three islets that look like the head, body and tail of a tortoise. Many visitors travel to these islets by ferry, believing that tortoise mean long life and a visit to the island will help them live longer. At Yuantouzhu, Chongshan Mountain extends into the lake. Near here are many rocks that look like tortoise heads. Chinese visitors also like to visit this place.
Web Site: Wikipedia Wikipedia Lonely Planet Lonely Planet
Gardens near Lake Tai Liyuan Gardens (on the shores of Lake Tai) is one of the most famous gardens south of the Yangtze river. Surrounded by water on three sides, it is dotted with temples and pavilions. A winding 1000-meters-long path in the garden is lined with brick inscriptions featuring the work of famous ancient calligraphers like Mifu. Jichang Garden is a classic Chinese garden located in the foothills of Huishan Mountain in Wuxi. It is a small garden but is cleverly integrated with its surroundings.
Image Sources: Province maps from the Nolls China Web site. Photographs of places from 1) CNTO (China National Tourist Organization; 2) Nolls China Web site; 3) Perrochon photo site; 4) Beifan.com; 5) tourist and government offices linked with the place shown; 6) Mongabey.com; 7) University of Washington, Purdue University, Ohio State University; 8) UNESCO; 9) Wikipedia
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
© 2009 Jeffrey Hays
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PLACES NEAR SHANGHAI
Tong Li
Chongming Island (one hour from Shanghai) has been called the “Shangri-La of Shanghai” and the “last virgin island” in Yangtze. These days developers are quite excited about developing it after it was linked to the mainland by a new bridge that opened in October 2009. Fifty percent larger than Singapore, Chongming island is home to 700,000 people put is expected to grow to 2 million people by 2020. On the drawing boards are a Disney theme park, a replica of Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch and the “eco-city” of Dongtan, designed by a British firm. Before the bridge was built residents relied on 18 ferry routes to get them to the mainland. Two more bridges are planned.
Putuoshan (accessible from Shanghai, on a two-hours fast boat, 14-hour slow boat and from Ningbo) is a small island with a quiet unspoiled atmosphere, green rolling hills, nice beaches, and Buddhist temples. See Ningpo below. Web Site: Lonely Planet
Zhujiajiao and Zboushi are ancient river towns located in the vicinity of Dianshan Lake. Here you will find water and bridges everywhere. Boats pass right underneath the eaves of houses.
Thames Town (an hour from Shanghai in the suburb if Songjang) is an imitation English town complete with a pub, fish-and-chips shop, neo-Gothic church, Georgian- and Victorian-style terraced houses, English gardens and even a bronze statue of Winston Churchill. The town is part of $635 million development expected to house 10,000 people.
Tongli (an hour from Shanghai) is famous for its imperial mansions. Visitors wander through courtyards and gardens. Touching the trunk of the Health and Long Life Tree and circling a stone mosaic are said to bring career success.
ZHEJIANG PROVINCE (Hangzhou, Yiwu, Wenzhou)
ZHEJIANG PROVINCE is the coastal province located south of Shanghai and the Yangtze Delta. Covering 100,000 square kilometers, it is home to 47 million people and the southern terminus of the Grand Canal. Zhejiang, is China's richest province. Both its rural residents and urban residents have the highest per capita income of any province in China. Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces are known as yu mi zhi xiang (“land of fish and rice”) after its good soil, water and climate.
There are specific areas in the province that specialize in certain products such as electric plugs, hinges, electric switches, faucets and florescent light bulbs. Wuyi produces 1 billion decks of playing cards a year. Forty percent of the world’s neckties are made in Shengzhou. Xiaxie specializes in jungle gyms. Shangguan churns out ping pong paddles. Fenshuo makes millions of pens. There are also places that specialize in razors and eyeglass frames.
The people of Zhejiang have long been known for their entrepreneurship and resourcefulness. Because it surrounded by mountains it has traditionally been neglected by the central government. The coastal areas in