Jiangsu & Tongli 

cctv.com 04-14-2005 14:50

One of the province’s celebrated water towns, Yangzhou has the Yangtze River flowing just to the south and the Grand Canal skirts it to the east.

Our first stop in Jiangsu is Tianning Temple. Inside the temple complex is the Yangzhou Museum with its memorial hall dedicated to Marco Polo.

I’m standing in the courtyard of Tianning Templein Yangzhou. I’m actually by a bronze lion that is a copy of a statute in St. Mark Square in Venice. It’s a gift from the people of Venice to Yangzhou and commemorates the extraordinary travels of Marco Polo. He is probably the earliest recorded traveler in China more than 700 years ago. Venice was his hometown and he spent 17 years traveling around china. Three of these years, he was said to have been governor of Yangzhou. This museum behind me actually is Marco Polo Hall. And that has details of all his travels and the time he spent here. I think it’s very fitting that I’m gonna start my travels of Jiangsu province right here in Yangzhou.

We are guided by Mr. Chen Zhenghuai who is from The Jiangsu tourism bureau, with him we can loose our way for less times.

We head towards He Garden, a classic Chinese garden built by a late Qing Dynasty official. Jiangsu is famous for its traditional Chinese gardens, and this is a wonderful collection of buildings and pavilions with ornate tiled roofs, decorated corridors, exquisite courtyards, pools and doorways of all different shapes. I am filmed walking through several of them. It feels a bit like being on Playschool, the TV program where viewers had to guess whether a story would be through the round, arched or square window.

We film in a restaurant in an exclusive guest house where a typical local banquet, called a Honglou feast, has been laid out. The food on the table is as artistic as the wonderful jade pictures on the walls, depicting scenes from the ancient book which inspired Huiyang cuisine. With food this wonderful I am amazed I see so few overweight Chinese people. During the whole trip I see only a couple of people I would regard as fat. America eat your heart out.

The cuisine of this region, Huiyang cuisine, is one of the four most famous Chinese cuisine styles. It is subtle and delicately-flavored. I discover that one of my favorite rice dishes back in England “Yung Chow fried rice” originates from Yangzhou and is simply a corruption.

We get up very early the next morning to film breakfast being prepared by another restaurant. Breakfast is very important to Yangzhou people, it is part of their social life.

It’s very good. But you have to be very careful, because it drips all over you.

We take a cruise along Yangzhou’s canals to Slender West Lake aboard a dragon boat called Qianlong, named after the Qing emperor. Chinese often compare it to a beauty, for it has a special beauty in any season any weather. The gloom of the mist, through which the sun is barely visible, adds a mysterious atmosphere to the lake and surrounding park.

The main feature of the lake is the three-arched Five pavilion Bridge, which dates back to 1757. It is said that local divers used to put fish on the hook of Emperor Qianlong when he fished in the lake so that he would look favorably on his visits.

The drive to Wuxi, another canal town famous for its art, involves crossing the mighty Yangtze River by ferry. The mist-shrouded river is wide and very busy。 It’s amazing they all manage to avoid each other.

The evening rush hour is in full swing, and hordes of people are rushing along the narrow streets on bicycles, tricycles and mopeds. It is all so frantic, I don’t know which way to look.

Wuxi is known for its colorful A Fu figurines, notably a chubby little boy and girl symbolizing luck. We go to the Wuxi Clay Figurines Museum and Research Institute where they are made.

Wuxi is also home to the CCTV Film and TV Studio, China’s version of Universal Studios. A number of Chinese films and TV series have been filmed here. Like its American counterparts, this complex is divided into zones. We watched a live show featuring a flying kung fu fight sequence in one of them. The aerial scenes have sword blades, somersaulting and spinning, they are leaping past each other in thin air while brandishing their swords.

One of Jiangsu’s most amazing sights is the 88m tall Lingshan Buddha. Ethereal music is wafting through the air. The top of the column shaped like a giant lotus flower. Its petals are slowly opening to reveal a shiny bronze statue of a young Buddha, this scene means to symbolize Buddha’s birth.

Yixing City is famous for its purple clay teapots. Here I meet a master potter Mr. Xu, he has made many different kinds of productions and especially is good at figure. There are three different kinds of colors and they will change with the different temperature during the firing.

Leaving his workshop, my colleague jokes with me. The color of your hat is just like the purple clay, they should make a purple clay hat. I cannot believe that we actually do find a purple clay hat in the museum. Maybe I should trust their introduction that there are more than three thousand purple clay productions.

During the trip from Yixing to Suzhou, we pass a bamboo forest in the rain and have some venison there, it is unimaginable.

We are now at The Deyue building of Suzhou .After the dinner, I was given a sandal fan. Then I spared some time to test my skill of using chopsticks and to thank the host.

Among Suzhou’s many ancient tourist sights is Tiger Hill, which is surmounted by China’s very own Leaning Tower. The top of the seven-story 1100-year-old brick Cloud Rock Pagoda began tilting 400 years ago and is now more than two meters off center. Hundreds of private gardens were built over the centuries, most by wealthy officials who fell favor with the imperial court. We film in the 500-year-old Humble Administrator’s Garden and the tiny but beautiful Master of Nets Garden. The garden’s creators were aiming to present them as landscape paintings using rockeries and water with bridges, corridors and pavilions. The mirror effect is amplified in the Master of the Nets Garden.

Suzhou is famous for its gardens, in fact it is known as China’s city of gardens. There are 9 listed by UNESCO as world cultural Heritage sites. I’m in perhaps the most famous of all which is the Humble of Ministry’s Garden, which dates back to the 1500s. It leaves me with a few questions: Why did Chinese build these wonderful gardens? Why did they build so many in Suzhou? What relevance do they have to the local people, to their culture, to the way of life they live? What does that mean to the people like me who come to see them now? Hopefully in my time in Suzhou I’ll find my answers to those questions.

Suzhou is also famed for its silk and embroidery, and at the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute I watch some girls embroidering intricate silk panels stretched out on wooden frames like oversized artists’ easels.

A Nanjing middle school student describes in his composition: You will feel an ancient atmosphere when you arrive at Suzhou. It is full of canals and if you close your eyes, you will feel you are in the time of rowing oars. It is Suzhou with ancient charm.

We visit at night when the outlines of the pavilions and buildings are brightly illuminated. We are there to watch performances of the local opera, called Kunqun, and musical performances called pingtan. I expect to have to sit through hours of shrill, ear-piercing singing. But it is a series of cameo performances, each only about five minutes long. As each one finishes the audiences moves off to next pavilion for the following one. There is traditional opera as well as musical exhibitions of instruments.

The Hanshan Temple dates back 1400 years. During the Tang dynasty, two senior monks Hanshan and Shide came here and its name had been changed to Hanshan Temple. One tale said the they sailed to Japan by a bell of Hanshan Temple and settled in at Sati to spread Buddhism and Chinese literature. There are ancient temples, bridges, barriers, towns and canals. The ancient temple is Hanshan Temple, the ancient barrier is the Tieling Barrier over the meeting of Grand Canal and Shangtang River, it was built in 1557 to resist the invaders. The ancient bridge is the Jiangcun Bridge and Feng Bridges are over the Grand Canal beside the Hanshan Temple.

I am amazed at how incredibly busy it is. The canal is like an aquatic motorway. Empty ones sit high above the waterline like paper boats, but the fully-laden ones are so low in the water that it seems as though a single ripple would be enough to flood over the hull and sink them.

The section of the Qianhua River in Nanjing city is the busiest section of the Qinhuai River. Nanjing functioned as the capital 11 times, and in Ming dynasty, the Fuzi temple was used as the examination rooms for imperial examinations. The examinees gathered here as well as many shops, including hotels, tea shops, restaurants and so on, even the brothels did as well.It became a travel destination. A lady from Jiangsu Tourism Bureau invited us for lunch.

The brocade is silk woven with colorful threads, sometimes even gold and silver. It is one of the most silk woven brocades in China and dates back some 700 years to the Yuan Dynasty. In earlier times it could only be used to make formal imperial robes or casual dress for the emperor or imperial family members.

The weaving room is like an industrial revolution era factory in England. A row of large wooden platform looms are operated by two people, one at the bottom and the other sat high up in the leviathan’s frame. The weavers can only produce 5cm of brocade length a day. As a result it is very expensive. Now it is been used by the minority people and been exported.

We visit the 600-year-old Zhonghua Gate, which is regarded as the grandest in China. There are shot marks on the wall and they are left by Japanese invaders. The wall that surrounded the city was longer than Paris’s wall in Ming Dynasty. Here I meet a retired worker.

Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu Province. We also visit the tomb of the first Ming emperor. To avoid the destruction of the ghouls, when the emperor died, 13 coffins were delivered. With the same honor guard, the ordinary people could differ which one is the true one.

Balmy Garden, in the center of the city, is a classical Ming garden. It housed the opulent Mansion of the Heavenly of a former Ming Dynasty palace. Some of the buildings were used as the president’s residence and office during the time of Sun Yatsen’s government. The tranquility of the garden is in stark contrast to the violence which surrounded here.

The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, is of monumental Communist architecture. It’s most impressive. The foreign experts thought that the Chinese People could not build the base themselves, but they were wrong. It only takes two minutes to cross Yangtze River now, when it once took half an hour.

This is China, This is Chinese!

Tongli

Where do you feel like you’re in a dream? Where do you want to stay? It's in Tongli - the water city!

The landscape en route to Tongli is dotted with canals and ponds. It’s reminiscent of Holland, even down to the architecture of some of the houses. They’re much larger than in other parts of China and reflect the wealth of the region south of the Yangtze River. This is thanks to the river, the canals and Tongli’s proximity to Shanghai and the world beyond.

Many poems have been written about China’s water town scenery, and the scene in Tongli is just like a painting. The canals are lined by houses that date back hundreds of years, to the Qing and Ming dynasties. The only giveaway that I’m in China is the tiles that are stacked up in different shapes. These resemble the craft that ply the local waterways.

We get up early next morning to film at dawn. The shops are not yet open but many people are around, walking and cycling through the town and along the paths next to the canals. Many are sweeping the streets or washing clothes and cooking utensils in the canal water. One man empties the contents of his potty into the canal, on the same steps a neighbour washes dishes and pots. I’ve seen people washing food, utensils and clothes in the canal water. Undoubtedly the sewers also empty into the canals. It hardly seems hygienic. Tongli is fed by a river that has been converted into 15 canals, and it’s surrounded by five lakes. It was only accessible by boat until 1985, this was when the first road to it was built. At a wide intersection, two canals meet, and there are three stone arched bridges. They’re called Peaceful, Safe and Sound, and Lucky. Supposedly walking across all three bridges brings you good luck, peace and safety. Obvious really. The cormorant fisherman is on his boat, pushing back the canopies and rolling up his bedding.

Walking back along the canals I photograph several of the woman gondoliers who are relaxing while they wait for customers. Some are chatting while others are busy knitting. I stop to take pictures of the local life. The streets are alive with color and activity. A group of old women, sporting headscarves, sit on benches and stools in the main square - no doubt gossiping about some local item of interest. I photograph one of them relaxing by a window, looking out onto the street. The scene is timeless. A craft slowly edges along and passes under an arched bridge a little further along the canal. Once it has passed, the green-brown waters return to their mirror-like state.

The scene is so restful I could stay here watching it all day, but work calls.

The canals are an integral part of local life and are the main reason for the influx of tourists. We take a boat trip and I talk to the boat lady.

The canals are an integral part of local life as well as being the reason for the influx of tourists. We take a boat trip and I talk to the boat lady. She tells me there are 40 boats that take tourists on trips along the canals. They are traditional modes of transport in Tongli and for the local people, prior to 1985, they were the only means of getting around. Now they’re just for tourists. The boat lady worked for a chemical factory before working on the canals, but the factories were closed down or moved out of Tongli to protect the environment.

We end up at the three bridges junction, just in time to watch a demonstration by the cormorant fisherman. He uses a long bamboo pole to dislodge the birds from their perches. They dive into the brown murk and within seconds reappear on the surface, juggling large fish in their beaks. But their gullets are tied with string so they can’t swallow the fish. The fisherman uses the pole to retrieve each bird, grabbing its neck and easing the fish out of its mouth into the boat. Then the birds are slung back into the water. A sign on the wall says the birds are cormorants. Mr Ge says that he has been a fisherman all his life, as was his father and grandfather. He depends on fishing for his living, and supplements his income with shows for the tourists. He sleeps on his boat for much of the time but actually lives in a village nearby. One of the surrounding lakes is his usual fishing spot. It takes anything from a year to six or seven to train a cormorant. Obviously, some are more bird-brained than others. They regard him as their father so they don’t fly away. Because the work is so hard, few people rely just on fishing as a living. Fewer are also learning how to catch fish with cormorants. I ask if the canal fish are edible and whether he eats what the cormorants catch. But he doesn’t answer my questions. According to Mr Ge cormorant fishing is at least 1000 years old and can only been seen in southern China. He’s worried that young people don’t want to learn the skills. He has two sons and three daughters and none of them want to learn. It’s a pity that he hasn’t passed it on to his children and he concedes that it might die out as a traditional way of life. But, as a father he doesn’t want his children to work as hard as he does and endure the harsh living conditions. He wants them to have a better life. As a father myself I can understand that.

The town planners want to make sure the old town does not become too commercial or touristy. They’re established a street that caters specifically to tourists, and shops around areas like the three bridges will be shut down. After lunch we go to Tuisi Garden, which has lovely mosaic pavements, courtyards and pavilions around a lake. Mr. Yan says that Tongli now gets two million visitors a year.

Tongli town stresses education from the ancient time. As an example: there was a girls’ school that dates from the beginning of the Republic of China. It was not common for a small town to have a girls?school. Firstly, the town had to be rich to support the education, and secondly the people had to be open- minded. There’s a Reading Book Bridge, which is very unusual. The couplet besides the bridge reads: under the moonlight, all the students are reading. The ancient people thought that scholars should be respected by all the people. The aim of reading is to be the Number One Scholar. There is one Number One Scholar, 42 metropolitan graduates and 93 provincial graduates. In fact, there’re a large number of scholars compared to the size of the town. Now, the town has four academics at the Chinese Academy of Science.

The Tongli Primary School was founded in 1906 as an all-girls school. It was the first one in this part of China. The people of Tongli were clearly very egalitarian. The bell rings and kids come rushing out. They stop in their tracks as soon as they see me and start clamoring around me, wanting me to take their pictures. Before long I’m being mobbed and they follow me round the schoolyard as I try to escape. I feel like the Pied Piper of Hamlin and climb onto a concrete plinth to escape. I shout for help, as I’m worried someone might get hurt. Suddenly the bell sounds and the children run back to their classrooms to restart lessons. As they disappear one cute little girl with pigtail stops to wave before running off to join her classmates. I met her again later after leaving a canal-side restaurant. Her name is Wenting Zhao and the restaurant is owned by her parents. She had seen me there and came to say hello again as I was leaving.

Before lunch we go to the Chen family residence. Here’s a series of very ornate buildings with their own private stage and canal. They date back to the Ming period. The roof decorations include lovely representations of boats and fantastic carvings of sea monsters, mythical creatures and gods. The main residences have richly-shaped doorways, popular in Jiangsu. I remark that the occupants must have been extremely rich. Filthy, stinking rich is probably a better description. There’re a local famous love story called Pearl Tower.

When we get to the three bridges a bright red sedan is being borne across the bridges by people dressed in red. The sedans are traditionally used for weddings but also take tourists for rides. They are accompanied by musicians that lead the way playing shrill reed instruments. I watch a young girl in traditional bridal costume beaming with enjoyment. Meanwhile, in the junction between the bridges the cormorant fisherman is getting ready for another show.

We take a short boat trip across Tongli Lake, one of the five lakes surrounding the town. This takes us to Luoxing Island and the Guanyin Temple. It’s actually three temples: one Buddhist, one Taoist and one Confucian. They need a lick of paint as the yellow exterior walls, black roofs and red wooden temple structures are peeling. Tongli is surrounded and divided by those lakes, life here is connected with water.

Back in the old town we walk through the narrow, shop-lined streets to the Nanyuan Tea House, or Southern Tea House. We’re served traditional baked bean tea that consists of baked beans, salted carrots, pickles, orange peel and green tea. It tastes a bit strange. Everything in the brew can be eaten as well as drunk. It’s a traditional tea that parents give to their daughter’s boyfriend. If a boy visits his girlfriend’s family and is given baked bean tea he will be flattered because it means the parents approve of him and the relationship.

Flying out of Shanghai’s new and impressive airport is a far cry from the old world atmosphere of little Tongli. Overlooked by many tourist guide-books, Tongli is a hidden gem. It’s not without its problems and the town-planners face many hurdles in their attempt to tread the fine line between opening up Tongli to more visitors and retaining the traditional character of the town and the environment.

I hope to return to Tongli many times in the future. My wish is that the authorities manage to preserve the spirit and serenity of Tongli, and the friendliness and grace of its people is retained.

Editor:Hu  Source:CCTV.com