This week I went to one of China’s most famous and beautiful tourist attractions, the ancient water village of Zhouzhuang. This water village, also known as the “Venice of the East”, is an quiet, small, ancient village built atop a lake inlet outside Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu province. In my opinion, the name “Venice of the East” is a bit of a misnomer because the only thing that ZhouZhuang has in common with the large European city is its canal structure. Unlike Venice, with its multiple story tall buildings, ZhouZhuang portrays a serene, almost pastoral-like paradise. The villages’ canals and houses are shadowed by weeping willows, and the air is filled with smells of roasting pork sprinkled with mouth-watering spices. Although ZhouZhuang is kind of built up like a tourist trap, it is not crowded, and the day we went was beautiful and sunny so the overpriced food and yelling hagglers put no damper or stress on our visit.
Getting to ZhouZhuang itself was neither hectic nor troublesome, we simply took a tourist bus from Shanghai there and back. The route was only 2 hours and passed through what can only be described as “Chinese suburbs”. When people think of China, they normally think of the giant, busy cities and ancient architecture, but are not familiar with what may lie in between. On our way to ZhouZhuang, we passed by multiple story houses clumped together, rice fields, busy downtown areas with flea markets, a few apartment buildings, and many factories. In order to reduce pollution in its large cities, the Chinese government has been working to move factories outside of its sprawling metropolitan areas like Shanghai and Beijing. As the weather was beautiful and the trees green, it was surprising to drive by civil defense manufacturing factories on our way to the ancient water villages.
There are a couple ancient water villages worth any tourist in China’s time to see, however, ZhouZhuang is especially interesting because of its unique history. Zhouzhuang was part of a fiefdom for almost a thousand years before it was dedicated to the Full Fortune Temple in 1038 AD by a devout Buddhist. The village is scattered with Buddhist temples, padagoda’s and incense burners. ZhouZhuang also has an old mansion located on it, called Shen House, which was built by the areas first millionaire during the Qing Dynasty. We visited this house and were amazed by the extravagance. It seemed like Shen went out of his way to build a luxurious getaway within the tranquil paradise. Although Shen’s mansion displayed beautiful traditional Chinese architecture and the paste-white walls like many other houses in the village, it luxuriousness stood out among the smaller, crumbling, yet beautiful houses along the canals. Travelling in China to see magnificent structures built by emperors and princes always leaves me wondering about the locals living in these tourist areas, and how they are struggling to make a living. Although ZhouZhuang is a tourist attraction, it is also a living, breathing town, with locals washing clothes in the canals, fishing in the lake outside the village, and working to survive among the picturesque landscape we pay to visit and take pictures of.
As typical tourists, we obviously went for a boat ride in the canal with a singing boatman. The boats in ZhouZhuang were brightly colored, with red lanterns hanging everywhere. The boatman did not guide the boat with oars, instead he had a long pole that dug into the canal bed and pushed the boat forward with each stroke. As he gently pushed us along the canal, he sang an old song. Old Chinese songs are much unlike the old ballads you might hear on a boat in Venice, instead they are more high pitched, almost screech-like, and contain their own unique beauty, very distinct and somewhat strange to western ears.
In ZhouZhuang we also sampled tons of street food. There were sweet sesame candies, animal shaped steamed buns (obviously catered to tourists), roasted pig thighs, spicy chicken dishes, and tons of other unique small foods. We spent the day walking around this beautiful town, eating food, and taking pictures. The floating village was one of the most peaceful, serene places I have ever visited.
