I've exhausted his vocabulary - China part VI
We're going to see the suburb of Shanghai, SuZhou today. Sorry about the delay but as promised, we'll see a silk factory and the Master-of-Nets Garden today. We will also take a riverboat tour through the canals of SuZhou - the Venice of the Orient. One thing, among many, that China Focus did well, at least to us, was that as the tour was reaching its end, we had more and more free time. Rather than having us on tours from 8 am to 7 pm, they slowed things down. 9:30 meeting time, back to the hotel by 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I think that's wise just because people start to wear out. I know I appreciated it!
Onto SuZhou we go!
At this point we were old pros at the get-off-the-plane-get-our-bags-meet-the-tour-guide routine. Toby, as our man-in-charge, got the carts and the rest of us got the bags. Walk to the bus. Meet the new local tour guide. Like we'd been doing it for years.
From the domestic Shanghai airport, called HongQing (later we would fly out of the international one called PuDong), it was about a 90 minute bus ride to our hotel in SuZhou. As we rode, our SuZhou-Shanghai local guide told us about the area. SuZhou's popularity has exploded recently, with its population nearly doubling in less than five years. Between Shanghai and Suzhou you can see factories and dormitories and apartments. Scattered between the factories are farms growing everything from oysters (for pearls), rice, wheat, corn and other goods. One thing you'll notice as you drive down the road is that even though it is clear some of these farmers are quite old and have been doing this for most of their lives, the quality or standard of life here, in the outskirts of an industrial city, is still somewhat higher than that of a an area that is more agricultural, such as Guilin.
As we drive along Joanna tells us that the day we arrived, May 31, is the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. And today for the Dragon Boat Festival the locals are feasting on zongzi made of sticky sweet rice, sometimes accompanied by sweet ingredients such as red beans, or savory ones such as mushrooms, shaped and wrapped in bamboo leaves, tied up with string, and then steamed until cooked through. The Dragon Boat Festival originated in honor of the Chinese poet Qu Yuan who committed suicide by jumping into the river. The people, who believed Qu Yuan was a good man, made zongzi and threw them into the river, hoping the fish would eat the sticky rice treat, rather than Qu Yuan's body. They also made dragon boats and banged on the side to scare the fish away.
The next day, June 1, is also a holiday, Children's Day. The remaining 364 days a year teachers, parents, and grandparents push children to their very limits, hoping they will excel. Parents in China don't necessarily do so with loving encouragement and helpful advice. Chinese parents show their love by stern offerings of food, strict regimens of studying, and declarations that their children are lazy and good-for-nothing as a means of motivation. But on Children's Day, the children become the center of attention. They get new clothes and new toys, get to eat special food, and are little emperors and empresses for the day. Remember that in China, each couple is only allowed one birth so most parents have only one child. This is their chance to shower affection on their little offspring. Even the tour guide, Toby, got a phone call from his daughter asking him, "Daddy, tomorrow is children's day, what are you bringing me for a present??"
The silk factory we're visiting is called the SuZhou No. 1 Silk Factory. Everything there is made by hand. The silk starts off as little tiny worms, silk worms. They eat only mulberry leaves and grow to be just short of 2 inches in length.
**Warning! If you're made ill by the side of bugs, do not scroll down!**
The life cycle of a silk worm is about 35 days long and during that process it will sleep for a period of 24 hours 3 times. The third time it arches it back and the silk farmer will pluck the worm and place it on an area where it can weave its cocoon. When the cocoon is woven it is exposed to a heat source to kill the pupa inside. Then, it is brushed to find the end of the silk thread. Each cocoon can produce a silk thread up to 1200-1500 meters in length. No, that's not a typo. A single silk thread can be nearly a mile long. Several threads can be woven together to make a stronger thread. And that's just a single cocoon. Double cocoons, cocoons in which two worms were so close together that their cocoons have made one double-size cocoon, are sorted out of the pile and put into a different group. These are handselected and used for silk quilts and comforters. A lot of the process has been automated, but a lot of it is also still handcrafted.
Cocoons waiting to be brushed
These cocoons have already been brushed and are waiting for the machine to pick them up.
Spools of silk thread being spun
This woman is hand selecting the cocoons for the comforters. She will stretch them over the little arch. Then she will stretch them over a bigger arch. The fabric from the arch will be laid out to dry in the sun and then stretched into a comforter. She has been hand-selecting and stretching silk for 30 years.
The big arch
Pulling the fabric into sheets for a comforter.
After the silk factory (and there was much shopping) we visited the Master-of-the-Nets garden. SuZhou is home to a number of gardens that are delicate in their balance and structure. The Master of Nets garden is one of the most famous in the world ... the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has copied this garden for its delicate appearance. It was named Master of Nets for a fisherman who saved a drowning child. The child belonged to an official and the official had the garden renamed to honor his child's rescuer. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
The happy couple at the garden - aren't we cute?
Then there was the tour of the canals. These canals are basically the backyards of people's homes. For a few yuan a boat driver will take you up and down the canal. Awhile ago (I don't know exactly how long ago) the canal went all the way from SuZhou to Beijing. It was a way to deliver goods without using the busy roadways. Now parts of the canal are too shallow to drive a boat through. Normally the passengers are not allowed onto the boat's decks to see - they are only allowed to view through the windows. But we got special permission! Here are some photos from the Venice of the Orient:
And once again ladies and gentlemen, the happy couple
Tomorrow it's off to Shanghai!