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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| Can you tell which hand is broken? |
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| 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
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| View along the west side of Jinji Lake |
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| I skipped out on the spotted dick |
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| 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.
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| Joanna with our new expat friend... |
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| 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 21st 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.
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| Tiger Pagoda; yes, it's leaning |
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| Posing in the gardens near the Tiger Pagoda |
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| 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.
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