Day 3: Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang

I'm actually back in the States now and more or less recovered from the most wretched bout of jet lag. The censorship gods foiled my blogging attempts while I was in China, so now I'll start back-posting....

From the day before (12/15 aka Day 2): Meeting with our good friend from Cleveland, Ming. He used to tutor me in math and probably deserves a lion's share of the credit for getting me into Princeton :) It was great catching up with him and his wife, Liying, and their daughter, Melissa, whom I remember only as a little newborn.

Suzhou was gorgeous. It’s 2,500 years old and full of pagodas, gardens, bridges, and canals. We visited the drolly named Humble Administrator’s Garden, so christened because the public servant who owned the place decided he needed to build himself an extravagant estate in order to “humbly commune with nature.” See pictures below.

Our next destination was Zhou Zhuang. Here was where I saw two very different realities in China collide in what turned out to be quite a sobering experience. Zhou Zhuang is another ancient locale, a village built around canals, not unlike Venice. There are beautiful bridges framed by weeping willows and quaint little shops crowded along the shore. But it’s the middle of winter in the Jiang Nan area… there were biting winds that pierced through our jackets, and few tourists were out. The place was like a ghost town, but the shopkeepers who depend on the rich city dwellers and foreign visitors to make a living were clearly struggling. Our party of five paid a thinly clad older gentleman (maybe my father’s age) a mere $7 US to pull us in a rickshaw. He was wheezing during the entire trip, but was so pleased to have our business. People begged us to come into their shops… we didn’t, because the bitter cold made us want to leave as soon as we got there. We took some photos and retreated back into the comfort of our car to go back to our warm hotel room.

Between being constantly chauffeured around the city by our driver, lazing around the glass-enclosed pool at the hotel, and strolling down eight-lane avenues in Shanghai, I didn’t get any sense of the exotic. It’s not that much different from New York. I kept wondering when I’ll see the “real” China, until I realized that this is China--a study in contrasts. Compare the stunning opulence of Shanghai and the painful poverty of Qing Pu, where we drove a mere 30 miles outside the city to visit Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang. You hear all about China’s meteoric rise everywhere: on TV, on the radio, in the news, but I had to see it to really believe it. The cities in China teem with luxury, propped up by inexpensive labor and a burgeoning economy, but there’s a dark underbelly comprsied of those left behind, in city ghettoes and tattered hovels in the country side. It reminds me of a talk given by Jeff Shuck I heard once at the latest NTEN conference, in which he mentioned that in order to be in the top 20% of the world income-wise, one needs only to earn a mere $20,000 US a year (May not be the exact numbers--they've gotten fuzzy in my head and I can't find the original slides, though googling confirms the ballpark figure. He probably got the numbers from World Bank economist Banko Milanovic). I know that some people in China earn only about $300 (1800 RMB) a month. It certainly gives me pause when I thoughtlessly throw away 20 or 30 RMB on some cheap souvenir. What translates to only $5 US is worth a lot to some in China!

Day 2 breakfast! The Indigo gets full points from me for breakfast selection. This was the "Shanghai option."

Another Indigo breakfast option: the "Western" style breakfast.

Standing in front of the one the many beautiful gardens in Suzhou.

Gorgeous furniture inside a gazebo in the Humble Administrator's Garden.

Delicious bowl of noodles from a local noodle shop in Suzhou for 10 RMB!

Our rickshaw driver. I remain somewhere between fascinated and appalled?

My drink. The Revolutionary Frappe. It was not very good, LOL.

One of the dishes from dinner. We asked our driver to take us to a local Shanghai joint (non-touristy, please). This Shanghai style sweet and sour fish was delicious! 

Roasted pig feet we bought from Zhou Zhuang (admittedly out of pity for the shopkeepers). It's a famous Zhou Zhuang recipe and was delectable.