January 19-20, 2003

January 19-20, 2003

The next morning I take an organized tour to Suzhou. Not far from Shanghai, Suzhou is supposed to be one of the prettiest places in China, or Heaven on Earth as legend suggests. We travel there on a minibus along a very new but empty expressway. Once we get to Suzhou, I can say it looks pretty… pretty dreary that is. I think the nice parts must be hidden somewhere within this small town. (With 1.3 billion people, a small town has a couple million people!) Our first stop is the PanMen City Gate. Suzhou used to be a walled city and this section is the only remnant. Suzhou is also on the Grand Canal that connects this area with Beijing far far to the north. This wall section also has a water gate controlling boat access to the inside of the city. Next to the gate area is the Ruiguang Park with a pagoda at one end, but we don't visit it.

We then drive to the Humble Administrator's Garden, one of several that make up the World Heritage site, Classical Gardens of Suzhou. It is similar but more extensive than the one I saw yesterday in Shanghai. The garden is a maze of pavilions set amongst pools, bridges, and islands. Afterwards we stop for a group lunch. With us on the tour is a friendly Korean lady. She speaks very good English and said she comes to China often on business. Interestingly she said that Korean and Mandarin are so different she conducts business with the Chinese in English.

After lunch we visit Tiger Hill. It has a tall historic pagoda on top. We walk up for a look. So far the tour has been so-so. The guide speaks English but does little to explain the sights besides giving the English translation of the site names. Personally because of book censorship, I don’t think they know much of their own history.

The last stop is the most interesting. A tour of a silk factory. It is fascinating how they make silk fabric. Local farmers raise silkworms. These silkworms are pretty particular only eating leaves of the mulberry. In the factory, a sweatshop of women unravel each silkworm cocoon by tying them onto a thread-pulling machine. From there we walk next-door to the factory store where we can see all the garments they make from silk. I buy some silk pajamas for Aimee. The Chinese are pretty small, so I ask the biggest clerk what size she would buy and I buy it one size larger.

In the evening I ask the hotel concierge for the nearest Hunan restaurant and take a taxi there. It is crowded and nobody speaks English. I order a dish at random and it turns out to be something like green beans and bacon. It tastes good though.

On Monday, a driver picks me up and drives me to a supplier factory along the same highway as yesterday. Only today it is bumper to bumper. The traffic is so bad, it comes to a stop and then almost on queue, all the Chinese get out and pee along the side of the road. I had to laugh. Once we finally get to the supplier, I have a private lunch in the factory with the management staff. It is authentic Chinese food with turtle soup, some unidentifiable fried seafood item, and the scrawniest chicken you have ever seen.