Travelogue

| Gateway to the Silk Road | Guizhou Landscape |
| Dream away in Yangshuo | Where memories linger |
| Grand Canal at Hangzhou Ending | Curing Cuisines | Tea Tour |
| A Challenging Trip | Expedition to fairyland |
| Snacks at Kunming | Lijiang Impression |
| A Quiet Village Tour | Splash off Your Bad Luck |
| Summer Escape to a Holy Island | Suzhou’s History |
| In the Heart of a Miao Village | No-frills cruise along the Yangtze |

Suzhou’s History

Richard Watson
On a late afternoon, with the sun casting a balmy light over the tranquil canal, chocolate-colored boats and stone bridges among the streets and white houses, everything seems poetic. As the sun goes down they look even more glamorous with lanterns hanging high and low. It seems they have been glowing for thousands of years.

No one need look further than the Shantang Street, the only well-preserved ancient street near the downtown, to get a sense of the glory and prosperity of Suzhou in ancient times, when it was the most important city in southern China. If the unique gardens, glorious temples and mountains and enticing local cuisine were not enough, Shantang Street would be the place to get to know Suzhou and its enticing beauty.

The 1,100-year-old street survived the fires of ancient wars and the current reconstruction in the city, quietly situated in the centre of the city, leaves us a living memento of the city of centuries past. Passers-by are often lured to stop at the sight of the street and snap photos, while movie directors frequently shoot their films there.

Packed with the residences of celebrities, ancestral temples, workshops and ancient bridges, no other street in Suzhou - or anywhere else in China - can match it for sheer density of historical monuments.

Now under the protection of the local cultural relics protection sectors are 24 sites and buildings and more than 30 ancient archways, bridges, guildhalls, ancestral temples and other places of historical interest.

Xu Maomin, 65, an elderly resident of the street, said every bridge and well in the street has a story behind it. What's more, they have remained almost unchanged, although the heroes and heroines of those stories have long passed.

With weather-beaten stone bridges and lines of white houses with black tiles and red lanterns casting their light over the canal water, the enduring beauty of Shantang Street has captured the hearts of tourists past and present.

Even the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) emperors fell in love with the Shantang Street at first glance. Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795), whose ancestors were from nomadic tribes, was haunted by the beauty of the Shantang Street and ordered a replica built in Yuanmingyuan in Beijing to celebrate his mother's 70th birthday. The Dowager Empress Ci Xi (1835-1908) rebuilt this replica after it was destroyed by an Anglo-French punitive expedition in 1860, naming it Suzhou Street.

The Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi (722-846), who built the street and the canal to improve water transportation, could never have imagined the wonder he left behind along with his great poems.

To improve water transportation links, Bai, who was an official in Suzhou at that time, ordered that a canal be dug and a 3.5-kilometre-long waterway stretching west from Duseng Bridge at the Changmen City Gate to Wangshan Bridge in the Tiger Hill area was created. It was named "Shantang," and the street gradually built up along it.

By the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the street had become a bustling commercial centre, crowded with merchants and tourists.

Boats shuttled up and down the canal and traded with the residents who opened their back doors to buy goods. The residents often put money in a basket and suspended it from a window for the boats to fill with fresh fish or white wine. The boatmen sometimes would anchor their boats near a house and climbed up the stone stairways leading to a restaurant or a shop on the bank.

In the spring, boats carrying fresh tea, Chinese wood oil as well as a great variety of other goods used the canal for trade. When autumn came, boatloads of local produce, such as tender water chestnuts and large river crabs, were sent down the waterway to be delivered to other villages and markets linked by the network of small rivers.

On holidays and festivals, it was a gathering place for people from all walks of life. The young men came here to find their friends and write poems by the river while merchants in the boats displayed lanterns and merchandise to greet passers-by.

Shantang remained as attractive as ever. The original layout of the street remained unchanged with houses and shops standing on the banks and connected by regular stone bridges. The front doors of the houses face a pathway and back doors open out to the canal. Wood benches still lie near the back doors and lanterns hang near the windows.

Now the commercial bustle has faded away. Today the boats plying the canal carry tourists instead of merchandise. The residents have left their houses and now live in modern apartments some distance away. The ancient houses are now becoming coffee bars, restaurants and souvenir shops.

The Mekong Restaurant, run by an ethnic Chinese from Thailand, is one of the biggest restaurants near the river serving authentic Thai food. And the Eight Coffee bar stands nearby and chairs and wood tables are laid out by the canal in the open air.

The street behind the Mekong Restaurant is often crowded with shops selling wood paintings, local snacks and other souvenirs.

Suzhou has recently completed a project to restore the Shantang Street to its former glory and tourism has soared since then, according to sources with the local tourism bureau.

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