Day 7: Oops, No Kindergartners

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to my own and to yours--or to you, if you are one!

Secondly, my apologies--I teased you with the promise of kindergartners today, but that's not 'til tomorrow. Today, the gang has the choice of remaining in Shanghai or adventuring out on an optional tour to a city in the Silk Region. Both are beautiful places and worthy of exploration. It looks as if the agenda is leisurely, which will no doubt provide relief to those who are tiring of the walking and the seeing and the company of their fellow travelers.

Since we covered Shanghai yesterday, today I'll take you to Suzhou (home of the Optional Tour). Tour literature describes it as such:

Suzhou means “Plentiful Water,” and its Grand Canal is crowded with strings of barges laden with fruits, vegetables, construction materials, and coal. The Grand Canal, second only to the Great Wall as a Chinese engineering feat, was begun 2,400 years ago. Graceful bridges cross over the water, and tile-roofed whitewashed houses sit close to shore.

Doesn't it sound lovely? Suzhou is referred to as the Oriental Venice because 42% of the region is covered in water. With a mild climate and fertile landscape, gardens abound and it is sometimes called Paradise on Earth.






Sources disagree on how long Suzhou has been around. The estimates I found ranged from 500 years to 2,500. However, they all agree that it is a beautiful and captivating place. It was built in an interesting double-chessboard layout, with "the streets and rivers go side by side while the water and land routes run in parallel." As part of China's fabled Silk Region, Suzhou is a city of silk, gardens, and canals that inspired none other than Marco Polo. What it inspired him to, I don't know--perhaps greatness. Or really fun pool games.

One of the gardens to be visited today is the Wangshi Garden, which means Master of the Fishing Net. Built in 1140, it boasts a peony courtyard that has been reproduced at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Bigger is not better in Souzhou, apparently, as this is one of the smallest gardens in the area. It is celebrated on its use of space, which gives the illusion of a much larger area despite its small size.

Suzhou is very serious about its silk production. The girls will enjoy a tour of a silk factory and probably have opportunity to purchase some to bring home. The Suzhouians (?) weren't always so open about their silk-making practices; there was a time when the secrets of silk-making were so closely guarded that smuggling silkworms out of the city was punishable by death. Let's take a close-up look at the silk-making process:

Here are the cocoons with the pupas inside. Sorry, pupas, for what's about to happen to you.

The first stage is sorting. This woman is discarding any cocoons that aren't pure white. Rather Aryan, if you ask me.

Next, the dead pupa is discarded out of the unravelled cocoons. Goodbye, pupa.

Now the cocoon is stretched. Ouch!

After going through several more phases that include more stretching and dying, some of the silk ends up being used to make gorgeous hand-made rugs.


And lastly, of course, will be the requisite stop at the gift shop, where large amounts of silk can be bought by excited tourists.

I will end today with a note to my readers: please feel free to submit any questions you have about China in the comments section. On the last day of the tour, on which the girls will be traveling home, I will do a Q & A to answer them. So far I've got Asian breakfasts and squat toilets to cover. Keep in mind that if you don't submit questions, I'll have to make them up and they'll probably be inappropriate or dull or something. So bring it on!