Zhouzhuang is a 900 years old canal town in Jiangsu province about 60 km Southeast of Shanghai that can be visited in a day trip. Named “China's Venice” by Marco Polo, it is a picturesque small village where some of the best-preserved Ming and Qing dynasty canal homes can be visited if you don't mind too much the mass tourist rushing in and rushing out troubling your camera-holding hands with the tour guides' loud speaker competing against each other torturing your sensible ears.
It was quite an endeavour to get in and a complete misfortune to get out. Overslept and missing the daily direct bus to Zhou Zhuang, we had to venture to the Shanghai Railway Station which is by universal knowledge one of the most dangerous places in the big cities in China. As soon as we emerged from the cab holding our bags tight, a short haired lady and a wide faced lad approached us, his face so wide that he reminded me of Zhong Kui, the Chinese saint whose appearance scares away monsters. “Minibus to Zhou Zhuang? Right away! Come here come here”. We were led to the ticket us filled with greasy faces and smoke. A few shout over the phone, we were told a departing minibus was coming back to pick us – wonder what the passengers had to say? Never mind. After all the minibus was too far away that it would not come back. “No problem no problem! We will find you another one”. Inquiry of the price and the state of the vehicle were simply ignored. We decided to try train, pleased to see a short queue only to find a long wait because of the animated argument between the ticket officer and the client right in front of me. We ended up taking a cab.
A line of tricycles greeted us at the ticket office at the gate. All the riders have a tour guide licence hanging around the neck. The tour explanation had however nothing to do with the town's history but so and so visited the place when and when…
We started with the House of Zhang, built between 1436 and 1449. It comes with 6 courtyard aligned one after the either with sculptured black wooden windows, 70 rooms, with river flows through the hall. It is one of the few Ming style buildings with large column on the large namnu bases in the main hall. The first hall is the equivalent garage where a palanquin is stored. The second is the game room where some of the “four arts of scholars” can be found – Go, Zheng (string instrument). Further on was the main functional hall, female’s play room (females were not allowed to show up during the functions), and library where calligraphy and the Analects were instructed under the portrait of Confucius. The “Four treasures of Study” were neatly laid out on the studies, a bit dusty. Not the biggest one, the House of Zhou is definitely the most prestigious house in Zhou Zhuang.
We wandered into Quanfu (All Fortune) Buddhist temple. Built in 1086, the temple is famous for its unique location on the water. It was completely destroyed in 1950’s and was used for grain storage. Walking along the water and small bridges, one can still admire the newly restored pagoda’s silhouette on the water and the 1,000 years old Ginko Bilabo tree.
My favourite place is the Zhongshi (middle of the city) Street where we bumped into a wine distillery workshop, where the main hall was a half landing open space with a couple of black wood square tables and round stools tastefully placed. The counter on the left hand side is decorated in Ming’s style. In the next hall after a narrow courtyard there is a complete demonstration of the rice wine distillery process and tools. You will have to read Chinese to understand it. In the same street there is an iron workshop and a few typical local artisan arts workshops that are fully operational in Ming / Qing’s technology and selling the daily output in the 21 century.
I decided to try bus to go back to Shanghai to get a full flavour of travelling in China. Another tricycle brought us to the bus station and the rider this time charged double because incidentally the negotiated price applied to one person and not the vehicle. Another round of intense negotiation that I determinedly avoided.
We were told to jump on an empty bus that led us to a town which was of equally distance to Shanghai. As to the Taxi scene there, there was at least three parallel markets – official taxi, unofficial taxi and taxi without insurance and sometimes no number plate. Although it was significantly cheaper, the look of the driver didn’t give me much comfort, and the fact that two of them mounted into the car removed the last bit of my belief that I would get to Shanghai alive.
We took an official taxi. The last surprise was of course we were dropped three times further than the taxi driver promised us, which was fine. At least we were alive.
My friend was disdained of my distaste of travelling in a low-income mode even from the Chinese standard. I was not allowed to complain about the cheaters because that was the operating model within that income range. But how would I have experimented all this otherwise? I was told that it would be unwise of me to express my dislike of some of the dishonest behaviours in China because no one asked to come here in China.
I therefore turned to my non Chinese friends in China and complained. They all burst into laughter, found hard to believe this could happen to me, a native Chinese.
I was later told by my childhood friends who have always lived in China that, this, was only a learning process... So no one is safe.
