Life in Suzhou

Real life in Suzhou alongside the canals is quite a hard life from what I have seen. Water is drawn from stone wells and people wash up their dishes and clothes beside them. The canals are also used for washing up, washing clothes and mops in, and don’t ask where they do toilet tasks.

People live in the boats moored around the canals and day-to-day life is conducted along the sides of it.

At night the women form groups and do some sort of line dance activity to music out in some of the large spaces. Couples are out walking and talking.

Small children play near the water playing with nothing much than a few pebbles and sticks and some illegal firecrackers.

People are working in little craft shops making wooden buckets by hand and one couple were painstakingly making the woven seat tops set into timber.

The little houses have stone or slate floors, huge high ceilings with no insulation and seem to not have much or little electricity and no running water. Cold and draughty was the impression I got with people wearing all their coats and hats all day and night.

Three blocks from this living area is a huge commercial shopping area complete with all the shops such as Jeans West, Pizza Hut, KFC and the designer label stores. In the midst of all this chaos is a Taoist temple, the Temple of Mystery.

Like the small part of China that I have seen, there is such a contrast in one small area, from what seems decadence and Westernization to the old world of China and indeed of many countries where people eek out a living in basic conditions.

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