Travel, tourism, news, and life in and around Suzhou, China...and beyond!
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Introduction
"Shang you tian tang, xia you su hang" is an adage well known throughout China. In English: "In the sky, there is heaven; here on earth, we have Suzhou and Hangzhou." Thus, to the Chinese, Suzhou for centuries represented a bit of heaven on earth. Founded 2,500 years ago as the capital city of the ancient State of Wu, Suzhou is a city of canals, often referred to as "the Venice of the East" even though it is older than its Italian counterpart and was incomparably larger in size and cultural achievement throughout its long history. Located on the Yangtze Delta plain, an area so fertile it was called "the land of rice and fish" (hearkening to the Biblical phrase, "the land of milk and honey"), Suzhou rests a mere fifty miles west of Shanghai. Yet from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries, during most of which time Shanghai was little more than a mud flat fishing village, Suzhou was a major center of commerce as well as cultural and intellectual life. Major schools of painting and calligraphy were founded, techniques for silk production and embroidery were developed, and methods of ballad-telling and opera were created that later evolved into the world-recognized form of Beijing Opera. Yet of all its cultural riches, Suzhou's most famous are its classical gardens, nine of which have been deemed World Cultural Heritage sites by UNESCO. Today, as a city of over two million people, Suzhou is a booming metropolis, regaining its place as one of China's leading centers of hi-tech business and commerce and host to International Fortune 500 companies from around the world. Yet for all its success and modernization, the city retains its special place in the Chinese psyche as a place of intellectual endeavor, cultural refinement, and a graceful charm reflected not only in its gardens and operatic forms but in the very delicacy of its people and the softness of their spoken dialect. Why Visit Suzhou?
The renowned Song Dynasty poet Su Shi, also known as Su Dongpo, is popularly believed to have written, "It is a pity if one visits Suzhou and does not see Tiger Hill." Today, one might rephrase Su Shi's remarks to say, "It is a pity if one visits Shanghai and does not see Suzhou." Unlike Shanghai, Suzhou exists on a completely manageable scale. Nearly all the sites are within or close by the confines of the ancient city, so getting from one to the other is quick and easy, seldom more than a brief taxi ride away. Visitors to Suzhou have a myriad of options: the classical, World Cultural Heritage gardens, the leaning pagoda at Tiger Hill, temples and pagodas, barge-filled canals, remnants of the ancient city wall, museums for silk production and embroidery, performances of traditional culture such as pingtan (ballad singing) and kungqu opera, and more. Merely walking along Suzhou's famous streets such as Shan Tang Jie or Ping Jiang Jie, strolling through the Guan Qian Jie shopping area, or strolling randomly among the city's narrow streets and alleyways provides visitors with a rich sense of history as well as people's daily lives. After one day, foreign visitors can already know Shanghai for what it is and what it offers. Those same visitors, given a week, will only just begin to know Suzhou, but what they will see and learn is Chinese life and culture from one of its major historical sources. Where Is It?
Suzhou is located near China's east-central coast, roughly equidistant from Beijing to its northwest and Guangzhou to its southwest. Highlighted in light yellow below, Suzhou is approximately fifty miles west of Shanghai.  Map source: www.chinaonyourmind.com
Getting There
Every year, thousands of Westerners visit Shanghai for business or leisure and discover an ultra-modern, sprawling metropolis exhibiting the worst developmental tendencies of today's China and nearly devoid of any semblance of Chinese culture or history beyond that imposed upon it by the Western powers in the 1800s. Sadly, those visitors pass through unaware that less than an hour's train ride away, they could be experiencing the sites, sounds, and tastes of Suzhou, the very heart and soul of Chinese culture for most of the past six or seven centuries. Today, high-speed trains from Shanghai can deliver the visitor to Suzhou's railway station in 30-45 minutes at a round-trip cost of less than ten U.S. dollars. Alternatively, one can use public bus or private (hired) minivan. Modern super-highways now connect the two cities; driving time is normally about one hour once you have reached the outskirts of Shanghai. |
About This Site: Suzhou Plus provides information about the history and culture of Suzhou, China based on my experiences living and teaching there as well as my extensive research on the city. In addition, this site provides information on other Chinese cities of interest in Jiangsu Province and beyond. About China, Heart and Soul: China, Heart and Soul is the title of my memoir describing how I became a part-time resident of Suzhou. For more information, click on the link above or go to www.chinaheartandsoul.com About Me (Steve Koss): I am a former management consultant who "retired" into math teaching at a NYC public high school and thence to teaching high school English and undergraduate business classes in Suzhou. When not in Suzhou, my wife and I reside in New York City. Useful Links: |