Suzhou a city blending modernity, heritage
Surrounded by so much history stretching back more than 2,500 years, I could so easily sit by its waters, writing copious notes from scenes unfolding in front of me. Having been involved then with China for nine years, I knew change was inevitable, and that the economic reform and urban transformation underway in Shanghai would certainly reach Suzhou. How the city would grow however was an unknown factor.
Many of its narrow older alleys, enclosed between low-rise whitewashed buildings, were paved by stone blocks. I recall the sounds of my footsteps on them mixing with chatter emerging from the homes of families socializing over dinner. Trading was conducted within open-fronted shops while people gathered together in small, local restaurants conversing loudly as they shared an abundance of dishes harvested from a surrounding landscape of "water, rice and fish".
Sometimes, I believe, with travel, it is better not to return to a place that had created such positive feelings, and to instead retain the dream from that initial golden moment of discovery. I contemplated exactly that on the high-speed train carrying me recently from Tianjin to Suzhou, wondering how I would feel, since I had not been back since July 1996. This time, I was revisiting Suzhou as part of "A Date with China" organized through China Daily.
Arriving at Suzhou North Station, after a five hour journey, I emerged onto a modern, indeed futuristic area north of the older city. Transfer by coach to the hotel commenced via a series of busy, elevated expressways. High-rise residential and commercial buildings abounded, so unfamiliar to my earlier memories of Suzhou. Looking from the bus, roughly toward what would be the city's historic heart, I saw a pagoda. It was the 75-meter-high Ming Dynasty North Pagoda that I had climbed to obtain expansive views across the city 25 years previously.
I sat back and watched as we headed around a extensive lake, Jinji Lake, the largest city lake park in China, toward an area I remembered as farmland, of water and of rice. A futuristic skyline of striking architecture seemed to create an iconic image for 21st century Suzhou's direction, a model of how urbanization is changing the face of such cities across China.
