Tomb Sweeping in Suzhou

The first weekend of April was a holiday called Qingming, or Tomb Sweeping Festival, so we got an extra day off school. Traditionally Chinese travel to their ancestors’ graves twice a year to clean the site and honor dead relatives. On our school calendar it’s listed as a three day holiday, but two of the days are Saturday and Sunday, so one more precise. That happens often – holidays fall over a weekend, or we get an extra day off only to come in to work on a Saturday.

Relatives honor the dead by cleaning tombs, saying condolences,
burning incense sticks, and leaving food and drinks on the grave.

Regardless of one or three days, I was happy with a break. I hadn’t left Hangzhou since I came back from the Philippines and wanted to get away for the long weekend. Ralph was off to Shanghai to visit a lady friend, Justin was being Justin (a home body), and Trevor had sunk into a prolonged melancholy characterized by a penchant for receding into his apartment on Friday evening, refusing to socialize, and only emerging Monday morning when it was time for work.

Maybe I’m being harsh on Trevor. He does seem to legitimately enjoy a day chalked full of lounging in his bedroom watching the latest action movies. Ever since a night of too much booze last spring he’s taken it easy on the drink, but at least last semester he did come out with us on weekends. This spring he’s been even less outgoing, and half the time I see him somethings the matter – the shitty school (his words), the state of the football pitch, an injury, or problems with his new long distance girlfriend, who lives in Macao and has led him to look for jobs in Shenzhen next year, despite the fact that he says he hates China.

Trevor playing snooker at our local hangout, K8, back when he socialized more.

These frustrations, plus a competitive streak and a dose of a hot temper, combined to equal a stupid football-related injury. (side note: I’m calling it football now) I say football-related because he was on a field playing a game when it happened. But it was totally his fault. At the time Trevor, and our whole team really, was having a shitty game. I could tell he was frustrated – the cursing was an easy giveaway – and the whiff on an open shot attempt was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He slipped and fell, and while down smashed his hand on the ground in anger.

Trevor immediately shouted in pain and came up holding his right hand. After the game he got a ride to the hospital for x-rays, and sure enough he’d broken it. The doctor tried to push the bone back into place, and later that week Trevor went back for another x-ray. Unfortunately the bone hadn’t reset properly, so he needed surgery. He spend nearly a week in the hospital (don’t ask me why he needed to arrive three days before the operation) and got a metal plate in his hand for good measure. Maybe that will teach him to take it easy!

Can you tell which hand is broken?

At least he managed a smile in the hospital.

Wait, this post was supposed to be about my weekend trip…long story short, Ralph, Justin, and Trevor were out, so that left me and Joanna. We decided to go to Suzhou, a city less than 2 hours north by high speed rail. It was awkward that Justin, Joanna’s boyfriend (even if just a technicality), didn’t want to travel with her. Joanna and I get along swimmingly, and Suzhou was no different. 

Things are complicated to say the least, and I think the subject deserves a post or several of its own.

For now I’ll focus on Suzhou, which left a pleasant impression on me. The city felt older – in a good way. There’s so much construction in Hangzhou, especially where I live, that it seems to lack an identity. Now our hotel was in central Suzhou, so if I’d been out in the burbs I’m sure the ambiance would be different. It also helped that we stayed a stone’s throw from a metro stop. But even compared to central Hangzhou the city seemed to possess more character.

Our first night in Suzhou we walked along Jinji Lake, a few metro stops east of our hotel. Joanna had found a supposedly cool lakeside restaurant online, but when we strolled up nobody was there. I mean no customers whatsoever. The menu looked good, with a lot of traditional English dishes (a bit of nostalgia for Joanna), but we didn’t want to dine in an empty restaurant. We did stop in for a buy one get one free happy hour of beers on the patio overlooking Jinji Lake.

View along the west side of Jinji Lake

I skipped out on the spotted dick

View from our walk along the lake

After beers and more lakeside strolling we hailed a cab bound for a bar street (again, found online). The street was full of tiny bars and neon lights, but only a trickle of pedestrians. Fortunately we also stumbled upon a restaurant for a late night meal before we hit the bars.

A lot of the places had several scantily clad women perched on bar stools and no other customers. I mean scantily by Chinese standards – like short dresses or skirts, not Thai hooker scanty. Still, it seemed odd. We settled on a small place with a handful of other customers, mostly expats (and no bar girls). Drinks were more expensive than in the average Hangzhou bar – 40 RMB ($6) for a small rum and coke – but the atmosphere was nice. We soon started chatting to several other customers, including an older American guy living in Suzhou for business.

A couple drinks in he asked us, “Have you ever been to a chicken shop?” I didn’t really know how to answer. Was this some kind of joke about Chinese KFC? “Uh, I don’t think so, what’s that?” Joanna and I both replied.

“I’ll show you…follow me.” Our new friend led us outside, drinks in hand, across the street to one of the nearly empty girlie bars. We were immediately greeted by three Chinese ladies, but only the female bartender spoke English.

“This is Ben, he’s a great guy,” our expat guide began, “And this is Joanna, she’s up for anything.” He explained that at these bars you buy the ladies drinks, chat, and then have the option of going upstairs for some alone time. I’ll let you figure out what that means; for anyone who is particularly slow, no, it doesn’t mean a one on one chat.

Sufficiently creeped out, Joanna and I both made it clear that we wanted to get back across the street. Luckily our expat friend just wanted to show us the ‘chicken shop’ and didn’t have anything strange tricks pulled up his sleeve. He paid the ladies to take a group photo with us, and we three went back to the other bar. We continued talking with him and his friend; they were actually nice guys, but still, that was a weird way to introduce us to Suzhou girlie bars.

Joanna with our new expat friend...

He paid the ladies 100 RMB (about $15) each for a photo

The following day we rolled out of bed far earlier than I usually get up after a night out; but hey, we had sightseeing to do! After a late breakfast we took my self-guided walking tour of the “old” city (I use quotation marks because it wasn’t exactly ancient, but at least older than China’s 21^st century construction boom enveloping most cities).

Later we got a cab to Tiger Pagoda, where we also ate lunch. To get back into the city after lunch we hopped on a canal boat tour. Passing stone walking bridges, houses with back steps leading down to the canal for clothes washing, and old men fishing, it hinted at what life was like before so much change had come to China, or at least the idyllic picture I have in my mind of a simpler time in the Middle Kingdom.

Tiger Pagoda; yes, it's leaning

Posing in the gardens near the Tiger Pagoda

Houses along the canal

As soon as we got off the boat those peaceful scenes were quickly replaced by the hustle and bustle that characterizes most cities here. We walked along a tourist street, with small shops and cafes, as we made our way towards a metro stop to get back to the hotel. By the time we made it back it was time for a power nap. Problem was my contact solution had leaked out of the bottle (I don’t sleep with my contacts in). It took me nearly an hour to find some, and even then it was only a tiny bottle. None of the convenient stores, and most pharmacies, didn’t carry any.

That evening we went out for dinner at a Mexican place near Jinji Lake. It was on a bar street literally around the corner from the English place we went to the night before; I don’t know how we didn’t notice it! The food was tasty, and next door we found a live music bar that was actually full, mostly with expats. We had a few drinks there, then a few outside a convenient store before moving on to another bar. Problem was the other places along the street were dead.

We did stop in to one more spot on the bar street for a game of pool – I won of course – and then ended up back in the girlie bar area again for the nightcap. This time we actually went to a chicken shop, although this one seemed more legit, with other expat customers (although mostly middle aged white dudes). After chatting with a Canadian guy and drinking too may rum and cokes, we grabbed a taxi to the hotel, where we lucked out with street BBQ that we took to go for a late night room snack.

By Sunday fatigue caught up to us, and we slept in till nearly noon. Problem was our ticket was for a train leaving Suzhou at 12:30. Realizing that it was humanly impossible to check out, get to the station, and make out train in 40 minutes, we had to book a later trip. The next available wasn’t departing until 4:30, but we had no choice but to wait. To pass the time we wandered around the shopping area by our hotel, which had a Marks and Spencers, and lounged in the lobby, trying not to fall asleep.

By the time we made it back to Hangzhou and got a cab to the apartment it was already 7:30 pm. I could have made football at 8:30, but wouldn’t have been much use as a walking zombie. Suzhou was a ton of fun, especially with Joanna (again, things get complicated), and I was already looking forward to another trip.