Suzhou

Four friends and I took a day trip to Suzhou, a city to the west of Shanghai, about three weeks ago. There's a Chinese saying "Born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou, and die in Liuzhou" (in case you're wondering, "zhou" means province or administrative region, somewhat equivalent to "City" in the US). I'm not sure if the saying means anything beyond the fact that a childhood in Suzhou would be memorable for the gardens and beauty of the city.

During the day, we went to two incredibly pretty gardens and explored the city's main walking street. The city is also known for its Industrial Park, which is a bit removed from the rest of the city, but we didn't have a chance to go there. According to Wikipedia, the Industrial Park makes Suzhou the second most industrial city in China after Shanghai.

A lake in the first garden we visited. Garden doesn't translate well, but essentially it's a park where you often pay to enter, are able to walk around and to enjoy nature, and can see many idyllic settings that you'd imagine a wealthy official would own in ancient China.

Of course, no garden would be complete without a pagoda. I'm not sure what their function is since they seem primarily aesthetic rather than religious, at least when placed in a garden.

A random section in the first garden devoted to flowers. I thought this view was jarringly artificial compared to the rest of the garden (of course, the rest of the garden is artificial in the sense that it's meticulously maintained but it otherwise attempts to convey a peaceful, natural state). During my time in China, it seems like I haven't seen many flowers. Off the top of my head, flowers seem like a very Western or American form of beauty. I'll have to ask one of my Chinese friends how they view flowers, even as a symbol of romance.

I'm not sure what this man was doing, probably feeding the fish that are often put in the lakes of gardens, but he fit perfectly into the background. If I were a wealthy official in ancient China, I would definitely pay a worker just to sit there all day while I enjoyed this idyllic setting.

A stone bridge, another idyllic setting typical of a garden. Apparently the construction and maintenance of a garden is closely tied to feng shui, although that's the extent of my knowledge. I imagine stone bridges and pagodas help the garden achieve (or maintain or be or whatever verb is appropriate in this context) feng shui

A bonsai tree. If you want to be technical, bonsai refers to the Japanese art while penjing is the Chinese art (the Japanese pronounce the same Chinese characters differently). Anyway, there was an array of well-cultivated trees, which I hadn't seen before in China.

A view of the rock formations in the second garden (the rest of the second garden was similar to the first one). I haven't been able to get an informed answer on this one, but I want to know what the formations mean and why they're present in nearly all the gardens I've visited. Many pieces of art feature slabs of rock with holes in it, but I am clueless about their significance. If you find out, please let me know, I'm actually quite curious at this point.

All in all, Suzhou was a relaxing break, a day well-spent. We were harassed by a fruit vendor who put fruit in our hands, motioned for us to eat it, and yelled at us in Chinese when we refused to pay since we thought it had been a free sample. I'm not sure how we expected to get a free sample in China, but the beauty of the gardens must have overcome us by then. Otherwise, the city was gorgeous with many quaint shops and sights, I'd recommend it for a day trip