Berlitz: China Pocket Guide by Berlitz Travel

Author:Berlitz Travel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, China
Publisher: APA
Published: 2016-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

An exhibit in Suzhou’s Silk Museum

David Shen Kai/Apa Publications

The principal religious site, the Temple of Mystery (Xuanmiaoguan; daily 7.30am–4.30pm winter, 7.30 am–5pm summer; charge), includes the largest early Daoist hall in China (built in 1179) and today is surrounded by Suzhou’s biggest, liveliest outdoor market.

Wuxi

Wuxi, a city 30 minutes by train from Suzhou, means ‘no more tin’, a reference to the depletion, a couple of thousand years ago, of local mines. Wuxi today is a prosperous industrial and marketing centre with a population of 6.4 million, just one light in the Yangzi delta’s constellation of cities. Business parks and large-scale demolition of the older part of town have reduced the urban area’s one-time historic charm. However, canals and rivers still crisscross Wuxi, and the Grand Canal, Wuxi’s prime historic attraction, flows right through the centre of town from Lake Tai, Wuxi’s prime scenic attraction.

Even a short boat ride through the city on the Grand Canal produces unforgettable sights and photos. People may line the bridges (each of a different design) to wave. Human-propelled ferryboats scurry out of the way as long trains of barges, their decks heaped up with onions, reeds or bricks, labour past. The riverside dwellers, who live in quaint whitewashed houses, wash their clothes in the canal.

The Grand Canal project, begun some 2,400 years ago, created an inland waterway stretching 1,794km (1,113 miles) from Beijing to Hangzhou. For more than 2,000 years successive dynasties linked lakes and rivers to create the single canal, 40 paces wide, that went from Hangzhou, across the Yangzi and Yellow rivers, to the old capital Chang’an (now Xi’an) and on to Beijing. In its heyday, some 15,000 junks, sampans and barges plied this watery highway, carrying grain, timber, salt, fish, cloth, pottery and luxury goods.

Today the Grand Canal is used considerably less for commerce and transport. Much of it is not navigable, and some of the water is polluted. But for travellers it can provide an interesting excursion, as local officials from districts along the waterway resuscitate it as a tourist attraction. Canal trips by tourist boat often originate in Suzhou, and chug their way along to Wuxi.

The Grandest of Canals

The boats and barges that throng the Grand Canal at Wuxi recall the days when this great waterway was China’s main north–south artery. For more than 2,000 years successive dynasties linked lakes and rivers to create a single canal, 40 paces wide, that went from Hangzhou, across the Yangzi and Yellow rivers, to the old capital Chang’an (now Xi’an) and on to Beijing. Paved roads built along each bank were shaded by elms and willows. To celebrate the extension of the canal in 610, the emperor sailed along it in his four-decked imperial barge, escorted by a flotilla of dragon boats and followed by a retinue of eunuchs, concubines and officials. In its heyday, some 15,000 junks, sampans and barges plied the water highway, carrying grain, timber, salt, fish, cloth, pottery and luxury goods. With the advent of the railways and coastal steamers, the canal lost its importance.

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