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Published: July 21st 2011
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scenes on the way from Shangha to SuzhouSaturday, July 3
Today we took a day trip to Suzhou. Vickie talked for about an hour on the way! Interesting but I don't know how she did it.
Suzhou is about 1.5 hours away from Shanghai. Go out of Shanghai then on inter-provincial highway through Zangkou Province. “Paradise on earth” Suzhou and Hangzhou. Shanghai is the shopping paradise. Suzhou is historical, one of the 3 with the longest history (Beijing and Xi’An). Shanghai is only about 300 years worth; Suzhou was established 2500 years ago, during the Spring & Autumn period, along the Yangtze. Chu is on the upper river, Wu and Yue on the lower river. Wu is now Suzhou.
Wu culture one of the most influential especailly after the Song Dynasty. Always a place for the literati to settle. Suzhou is close to the ocean so for high ranking officials to retire, move south for peaceful life—no plotting or fighting. Now, cities are all growing. Suzhou was agricultural and scenic. Now industrial too but pace is not as fast. Hard now to find unpopulated scenic place.
Paradise: gardens, Classical Chinese garden. West Lake is open, everyone can go, have to pay in Suzhou to
go into the gardens. South has many gentry: poets, calligraphers, artists, and Buddhist temples.
541 BC, first Emperor of the Wu asked his prime minister to design a city so Suzhou has city walls. Wu 3 kingdom periods, after Han, began garden construction, popular in the Song, height in the Ming.
Three types of Chinese gardens:
1 Imperial: huge, spacious; 2 Private garden, such as the Lingering Garden; there are over 300 in Suzhou at its height; most are dilapidated in the 20th century now, 10+ have been refurbished and opened to the public, all reconstructed and repaired. 9 are on the UNESCO list, mostly in the south east where there’s not much space so the local people go daily, even buy a monthly ticket; 3/ Temple gardens, small corner garden, koi, courtyard with bonsais. The private gardens enjoy the highest reputation. Lingering is only 2.3 hectares.
Trains: take 40 minutes to get to Suzhou from Shanghai. 20 years ago, all green steam trains, took 2days and 1 night to get to Beijing, now 5 hours.
Suzhou is a medium large sized city, 8488 sq km area but downtown is only 14 sq km; built from
the Wu State which was about 14 km; still old, has narrower streets, 2 lanes of traffic. Population 6 million in area, 2 million in the city proper. Tourist city so lots of visitors. Also home of silk and we’ll visit the biggest spinning factory in China.
Suzhou area: farming and growing silk worms. 3000 years ago, found wild silk works, began to cultivate them. Mulberry silk worm makes the smoothest silk. Produced in 3 countries: China, Japan, and Thailand have the technology and ability. In 139 BC, Han sent diplomats to the Mediterranean, made the Silk Road. Mainly trade silk and tea, neighbors began to learn, remained our secret for years, killed anyone who told the secret (one way to keep folks quiet!!) Thai silk is handmade; quality of that made in China and in Japan is better. Thai is a bit rough. Can be hard to tell real, many fakes.
Tasso silk, the worms eat other foods, less expensive also less durable. During the Ming Dynasty, Suzhou became the textile center because of silk. Comparatively expensive to produce. Silk worm’s life span is about one month, from very little egg, 25 days to 1 month, then
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Susan naps after Vickie educated (so did everyone else) spin cocoon, 10-12 days, then butterfly (moth), 1.5 months to become butterfly, very delicate, need clean environment, mulberry leaves. Need to be cleaned, after worm season, farmer needs to clean the houses thoroughly. 3 seasons for worms. Spring mulberry leaves are best, then autumn, summer leaves are often too big.
Worms sleep big 3 times. The first 2 times, they sleep 24 hours and shed, the third time, is 36 hours and they’re ready to spin. Kids all raise silk worms in the area. Temperature, rainfall, good for the mulberry tree.
Silk road is in the NW but silk is in the south.
Worms spin a 5-15 meter thread, longer the better, one continual string. Need 7-8 twisted together to make it durable. Price depends on amount of silk used—15 filaments costs more. Very fine, thin ones cost more too because so hard to spin.
45 minutes into the ride and we were just leaving Shanghai!!
There are two types of cocoons: 1 has one pupa; second has 2 pupa; sometimes the worms are too close together as they weave and get wrapped up in one another. The worms’ heads move back and forth (sort
of pick them up like a snake) and that means they are ready to spin. The farmer moves them onto straw. One female lays 300-500 eggs/month. Don’t allow the moths to come out of all the cocoons, that’d ruin the silk! 15-20% are allowed out, to give the next generation of worms. The rest are heated or boiled to kill the moth inside so workers can spin from the continuous thread. One cocoon can be 7 unbroken yards. No dust is created, it’s all one long fiber, so no allergic reactions. The two-pupa cocoons are not used to spin silk but are soaked in water then stretched to make ‘sheets’ of silk threads for inside duvets.
Passed lotus farms on the way—eat roots, seeds, bitter center is used to cool the body temperature. The Yangtze Delta area has lots of these gardens. Also vast green arboriculture, big scale. Farmers plant or rent fields to someone else to plant.
Train: 300 km/hr, fastest, other is 250 km/hr. Fastest one just opened 7/1.
There’s no lack of water, just of good water.
Su= character is grass top, then fish, then rice: a place of abundance. Staple is rice,
big variety of fish and shrimp. Hairy crab is a local fresh water crab delicacy.. Has golden long hairs on its legs and is available late Sept – November. Eat like blue crabs (boil, turn red, crack and eat) only native to that lake.
Grand Canal—Song Dynasty, Yalu Rver was drying up, took water from the south to the north too. Longest canal in the world (1149 miles). The last two dynasties, Ming and Ch’ing Emperors took trips to visit Yangtze Delta area.
Suzhou is a paradise because of the classical gardens, silk, and the canal. Lots of rivers, criss-crossing the canal.
Saw lots of new condos, with appliances, W. toilets.
She was born in a house on the river’s edge, with a honey pot which was emptied daily in a central place for use as fertilizer in the fields, then cleaned. Wash clothes in the river and rinse in tap water.
Toilets: mostly in urban areas, find Western style; most public toilets are Chinese style, don’t like the idea of sitting on the same seat as everyone else. And always bring your own toilet paper!
1994, Suzhou and Singapore signed an agreement to
build an industrial park, 70 sq km. For 17 years, it’s been flourishing and they’re building a second for more international businesses to have offices. Shanghai has air restrictions now, so plants building more here. Suzhou has a new district designated for joint ventures. The city has the top GDP for medium/big sized city. Oldest part of the city has no high rises as it would destroy the harmony. Have low, 2-story houses.
Four famous gardens: Lingering and Humble Administrator here in Suzhou; Summer Palace and Chendou Summer Resort, imperial gardens.
Humble Administrator is the biggest private garden, has had many different owners, is 3 gardens together. Closely knitted layout of the architecture. There are four parts: 1/ Central: original shape, 1593, Ming, first owner; eastern: sumptuous architecture: entertainment, recreation, guests, studying; Western: natural landscapes, high hills, trees; North: bonsai gardens.
Owners: 3 main: 1/Shi: retired court official; 2/Liu, redesigned in the late 18th century; 3/Sheng: designed and renamed to Lingering
Every opening in the corridor provides a different view of the same garden; hired rock architects to arrange the rocks from under the lake so formed by the natural erosion of the water. Mandarin Duck
room, divided up one section for men, one for women (guess who got the fancier side? Both looked pretty nice to me!).
Behind the lime washed walls live the rich people and their gardens.
Plant a camphor tree when a girl is born and when she gets married, cut it down and use it to make her ‘hope chest’ for her dowry. Boy’s family pays for the meal and the house in the wedding.
28 cities have been approved by the Central Government to dig subway terminals.
We began with a visit to the Lingering Garden, one of the best gardens in Suzhou, as well as being one of the four most famous gardens in China. It is renowned for the artistic way in which the spaces between various kinds of architectural forms are dealt with. Situated outside the Cang Gate of Suzhou city, the garden was built in the 21st year of the reign of Wanli (1583 A.D.) by Xu Taishi, a bureaucrat, as his private garden-residence. Later the garden belonged to the Liu family in the 59th year of the reign of Qianlong (1794 A.D.) and was expanded, repaired, and renamed "the Hanbi Villa",
while popularly known as "Liu Garden." In the 12th year of the reign of Tongzhi (1873 A.D.), it was purchased, expanded and repaired by the Shengs, who gave it a new name Lingering Garden. Today the garden is separated into the eastern, central, northern and western parts. The central part features a man-made mountain and lakeside scene, resembling a long scroll of traditional Chinese painting; the eastern part is noted for its joyous groupings of garden courts and elegant buildings; the western part is known for the enchantment of woody hills; and the northern part for cottages with bamboo fences and idyllic scenes. We spent most of our time in the central part because the guide had lots of commentary for us there. It was amazing—as you wandered around through the corridors, you were looking out at the same scene but it was a totally different view you were seeing. Lots of pictures to demonstrate that. Then we went to the north part to see the bonsai trees (life sized trees, called ponsai in China).
We followed that up with lunch at the No. 1 Silk Factory, followed by a fascinating tour and, of course, opportunity for shopping. The
sizes were VERY small, for the most part. They had gorgeous men’s shirts but I was afraid to buy one for fear of it being too small. One of their specialties was silk-lined duvets—the ‘double’ cocoons (see above) are stretched and stretched on racks then once, finally, by hand, to the size of a comforter. When sufficiently thick, it’s put in a cotton cover and then in a silk cover in beautiful designs and colors. Since the silk is one big continuous thread, it doesn’t shift or bunch. After seeing the amount of hand work that goes into the production, yes, silk is worth the cost. Unfortunately, as most jobs like this, the people doing the hand labor probably aren’t the ones reaping much benefit.
Most folks slept on the bus ride back to Shanghai—1.5 hours each way. Upon return, Drew and I wandered around the area, window shopping, and had a light dinner. Went back to the hotel to pack and I did some more work on the blog—loading pictures that got renamed and reorganized--just a little frustrating!
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