In Chinese literature and films set in ancient times, when a character is described as a Suzhou native, he or she is always well-bred, sometimes aristocratic and coming from a family of scholar-officials.
A Suzhou native is always portrayed as elegant and graceful, a talented writer of poems and essays, often a connoisseur, delicate and fastidious about everything - what he or she eats (how artistically it's prepared), what he or she drinks, wears and uses.
"We have 50 zhuang yuan (top scholars) from Suzhou - how extraordinary!" - I heard that over and over from local tour guides, friends and taxi drivers.
Zhuang yuan were the superior scholars who scored No. 1 in the imperial examination, a major way for scholars to become government officials. In each exam, there was only one zhuang yuan, so they are highly valued and respected. And to have produced so many is a tribute to the intellectual atmosphere and cultivation of a city.
The number varies, depending on whether one counts city natives or includes everyone who's ever lived there. The total number of zhuang yuan from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), when the exam started, to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when it ended, is around 600, so the number 50 is amazing considering the small size of the city.
Suzhou may also be the only city where the number of zhuang yuan still is mentioned so frequently to tourists who have top China tours as a source of local pride.
As the locals say, Suzhou has produced so many precious scholars, intellectuals and literati that you can only count the zhuang yuan, otherwise the list is endless.
It makes one wonder what's so special about this small water city with streams and canals that has nurtured so many extraordinary minds.
My primary impression of the city was drawn from Suzhou beauty Lin Daiyu from "A Dream of Red Mansions," a famous 18th-century novel following the ups and downs of a wealth and influential feudal family.
Lin, a major character, was known for her sickly beauty, astonishing talent and emotional fragility. For a long time she has been used to symbolize talented women who suffer great misfortune.
She is a Suzhou native and as I read about her when I was a child, she gave me my first impression of the city - beautifully delicate, elegant and stylish. The visits to Suzhou in my childhood made my imaginary city very real. It was filled with all kinds of old architecture - towers, pagodas, pavilions, corridors, gardens, courtyard residences. It seemed difficult in those days to find a modern building.
These old structures displayed a kind of fragile delicacy in their well-designed brick columns, the worn carvings on the ceiling and roof and the often broken but cleverly fashioned furniture, some with moveable parts.
Residents spoke in a soft Suzhou dialect, walking at a leisurely pace down small and twisting lanes and bridges. Life moved slowly and gracefully.
It's a wonder that the old section of the city, its buildings and residents, haven't changed that much over the years. The preservation of that timeless quality is extraordinary, considering the country's rocketing development in which a place can be completely transformed within weeks.
In Suzhou, all the flashy shopping malls and skyscrapers are located far from the old town where new construction is strictly regulated to conform to its surroundings and not to clash with history. Busy factories are in a separate industrial zone. You can visit there and buy some souvenirs after your tired China travel.
It is also amazing that the old town's basic urban planning hasn't changed much since the city was built more than 2,500 years ago. Of course structures, roads, gates and bridges were built, renovated, destroyed and rebuilt, but mostly in the old style.
The grid layout of the water city, through which rivers and streets run parallel, has basically remained the same.
An area today looks much as it did in a painting created hundreds of years ago.
You can obtain more about the city via China travel agents
No comments:
Post a Comment