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Published: December 1st 2009
This Thanksgiving, instead of eating Chinese interpretation Thanksgiving food at some expensive buffet for American expats, John and I decided to visit the nearby town of Suzhou. Suzhou is supposedly renowned for being the Venice of China, and having visited both Venice and China, I can sort of see it... Both have canals running through the city, are surrounded by marshy swampy land, and host more tourists than is healthy for any city. However, despite Venice's stunning beauty and ingenuity, I prefer Suzhou.. because it is more lively and interesting. And where in Venice can one witness goats being slaughtered on the sidewalk? Or have their hostel screen a totally illegal showing of 2012?- which I think is still even playing in the theaters in the US. And was really terrible by the way, though I didn't mind, because it was free.
All in all, our trip was wonderful. We walked along the canals in Suzhou, admiring the tacky tourist knick-knacks and communist paraphenalia. We found a store that sold nothing but novelty matchboxes featuring all of your favorite political figures- such as Che Guevara, Stalin, Lenin, Mao (of course), and surprisingly a box set of Hilter and all of
Silence of the Lambs
I was walking down the street, and I saw these fluffy things lying on the ground, and I said to John, "Why are those dirty dogs lying in that red paint?"
Then I realized what it really was. I averted my eyes and walked away quickly, John took this picture. his henchman. Here is a little known paradox about Chinese people: They actually like Hitler, but they also really like the Jews. This makes sense if you think about it a while.
We visited a garden- because Suzhou is also known for it's many gardens- and it really was amazing. The whole thing was inside of an old monastery in the middle of the city.. but was filled with rocks so that you had to climb through the rocks to get to the middle, which had a lake and a boat floating in it. I liked looking at the garden, but I loved watching all the Chinese people running through the rocks having more fun than I ever dreamed possible in a giant rock garden.
Mostly we walked through the streets of the city, admiring the sites. I watched a woman descaling fish on the sidewalk, and bought a suspiciously fishy tasting fried potato cake from a vendor across the street. We walked down a street that had shops that sold nothing but springs, or engines, or nails. I saw a bunch of brides having their pictures taken on the canals, this time wearing lovely red silk sleeveless
Suzhou Wall
I love cities with remaining walls!! Go Suzhou city planners! dresses with gold embroidery.. looking like they were freezing to death.
Now I'm back in cold gray Shanghai, studying more characters. The intricacies and strangeness of the Chinese language seems to infuriate my classmates, but I love it. Well, almost all of it. I'm not a huge fan of the grammar, but I do like the character system, the way each word has it's own unique picture in a blend of words and art. I also like the fact that all nouns are classified according to a measure word which groups things that don't seem to have anything in common. For example- What do rivers, pants, fish and roads have in common? They are all longer than they are wide, and therefore they are spoken of with the "longer than wide" measure word- "tiao".
The Christmas season hasn't really hit the Shanghai area yet.. though I keep thinking that it is about to start. I've seen a couple of things that resemble Christmas trees.. most are conical in shape and make out of red or yellow lights with a big red star on the top.. which is kind of the same idea.. John and I plan on going
to Beijing for Christmas- I can't wait to see the commi-Christmas twists there!
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Mom
non-member comment
Hitler/jews
OK-I have thought about your comment...can't wait for a rainy afternoon and a Starbucks to understand that one!! Love you-