#116 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China ( Wuxi and Yixing )

It has been some time since the last TravelBlog, though the photos are accumulating by the hundreds. The neglect is in part due to a lack of time, the insane slow speed of the Internet in my apartment here in China, and some other personal events, with which I don't wish to depress you at this time. I hope, that at some point I can catch up with all of the experiences and travels I have been able to document with many colorful photos.

I am still very happy with my life here in China, though some personal injuries have made the past days somewhat painful. But that will pass, and I remember someone telling me, that: "Things that do not kill you, will only make you stronger".

For now, the students of TTC or on their summer holidays, and I have also taken to the road for the summer. On the schedule had been a visit to a college in Urumqi, vistits to Beijing, Xi'an, Hong Kong, and Kunming. Future TravelBlogs will tell you the fortunes and misfortunes of some of these destinations.

For now, I just want to share with you some earlier Spring 2009 photos from a visit to Wuxi, another ancient Chinese city in Jiangsu, only 2 hours from my home in Taizhou. I will limit the comments below the attached photos. The other pictures will then speak for themselves.

The Province of Jiangsu is one of China's economic engines, and all the cities of this industrial powerhouse continue to develop quickly. Jiangsu is where my home in Taizhou is located, and and it supports some of China's great historical cities: Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, and WUXI. The historical development of these cities is closely tied to the construction of the "Grand Canal", linking the Imperial Capital of Beijing with the beautiful city of Hangzhou from North to South.

In my previous TravelBlogs we have already visited the first three cities in Jiangsu. WUXI and its neighboring city of YIXING are the places I want to explore with you to in this TravelBlog entry.


There are many busses that depart Taizhou heading for Wuxi, every day. The one-way ticket costs 45 Yuan ($7.00) and the journey takes two hours. At times I am invited to travel by car, of course a more comfortable way to reach a destination.

WUXI, once known as YOUXI and literally: "There is tin", ows its fame to the fabled "Grand Canal (Da Yunhe)" and to "Tai Lake (Tai Hu)", one of China's largest lakes. Its history is said to date back 3,500 years as the capital of the Wu Kingdom. The city was the center for the production of tin. When the mines no longer produced tin (Wuxi means "without tin"), the capital moved further west, but WUXI remained quite significant due to its location on the "Grand Canal".

The origins of the Grand Canal date back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC), and since the 13th Century, this strategic man-made waterway along the East Coast of China, extending North to South over a distance of more than 1,100 miles (1,800 km), has connected China's major rivers (Yellow River, Huai He, and Yangzi River) and has created cities of wealth.

Like the connections of the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canal was pieced together from smaller canal segments along the China's East Coast. I am in the process of researching the construction and contributions of the Grand Canal. Once I have made the journey on the canal, which I hear is possible, and have the opportunity to take some photos, I will share with you the more important details in a future TravelBlog entry.

The Grand Canal flows right through the city of Wuxi, and the city's modest wealth was achieved through agriculture and the important production of "silk" and the transport on the canal.

For close to 1,500 years, the area around WUXI has produced China's oldest export, silk. Even now, most people living in the area around WUXI cultivate silkworms as a profitable sideline:

The silkworm cocoon is washed in silk-spinning mills and then the silk thread is pulled. The thread can sometimes measure more than 3,000 feet or some 1,000 meters in length. Several threads are then spun together into a durable yarn, that can be woven.

The other body of water that has offered Wuxi status along the Grand Canal is "Tai Hu", one of China's largest lakes, covering some 950 sq. miles (about 2,400 sq. kilometers). The lake has been the subject of much poetic praise with its romantic landscape of green and blue, and often veiled with fine mist.

For the residents surrounding the lake, it provides them with fish, and they breed ducks and geese, as well as grow lotus and water chestnuts on the lake.

All Chinese classical gardens are decorated with an indispensable and distinctive rock found mostly from "Tai Hu". The export of these special stones was an important family business in the past.

The lake is dotted with 48 islands, and spring here is greeted by thousands of plum trees in blossoms in surrounding gardens. It will have to wait for another future visit, that must wait for the next spring-season. During that time, the garden known as "Mei Yuan" (Plum Garden) offers its 4,000 fruit trees, covered in spectacular blossoms.

One of the most spectacular sights surrounding Wuxi is located on the Ma Shan peninsula. At "88 meters" tall, a very lucky number in China, (289 ft.), a bronze statue of Buddha protrudes into the heavens from its surrounding hills. The "gigantic" statue guards a very \special monastery, which encourages repeated visits to its graceful grounds. It is the sight, where many Buddhist World Congresses are held in one of the most lovely buildings I have ever had the chance to enter. Some of the attached photos will give some impressions.

The 88 meter Buddha was completed in 1991 and is the now one of four spectacular Buddhas in China,(one in the North, one in the South, one in the West, and this one in the East). This amazing copper statue overlooks several older pagodas and traditional temples with a history. But three newly completed buildings, reflecting the Buddhist architecture of Tibet, Thailand, and India attract most of the attention of the visitors.

The most impressive is the "Fan Gong Palace", an elegant wonder of Indian style architecture which is open to visitors, who must cover their shoes with cloth slippers to prevent damage to any part of the breath-taking interior. The "Fan Gong Palace" is the home of one of the world's unique auditoriums for international religious conferences. Visitors have access to some of its great dining halls for a delicious lunch, and not only vegetarian. I had the opportunity to have a more private visit to this inspiring architectural marvel, and was entertained by a wonderful lunch, with some exotic entries, as you will see in the enclosed photos.

I will revisit the ancient city of Wuxi with you again at another time, for now, let me just offer you this photo journey of my Spring 2009 visit.

Again I encourage you to enlarge the 142 pictures for their greater details, and I look forward to your questions, comments, thoughts and suggestions.

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