Wu an! Don’t let my three heads fool you, or that slight odor of pigs – I
am Jun Di, and I have traveled to this mortal sphere to guide you to one of
China’s oldest and most beautiful cities – Hangzhou. (The silly British used
to pronounce it “HangChow”, can you imagine? Such barbarians but then, most
cultures are primitive next to ours!)
I will be happy to guide you, if you will follow my chariot drawn by my
seven pigs – Sleepy, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy…well, you get the idea. Why pigs?
Why not? They are intelligent animals, self-sufficient, and they can be
recycled. We Chinese believe in practical deities!
We have a Chinese saying: Born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in
Guangzhou, die in Liuzhou. This means Hangzhou is the best of all cities in
which to live well. I will show you why.
Situated in a plain midway down the length of the great Yangtse River,
Hangzhou is thousands of years old, probably because rice grows very well
here. The true staff of life. On the map we are in eastern China, in
Zhejiang Province. The first city on this site was built during the Qin
dynasty, over 2,000 years ago. I believe your Greece and Rome were
“civilized” then. No one is quite sure how Hangzhou came to be built on the
shores of a beautiful lake, but for many centuries the West Lake – we call
it Xi Hu, which curls for twelve kilometers around the western edge of the
city – has brought beauty and all the joys of water, from crops to
fountains, delicate bridges to island gardens, to the heart of the city. It
is fed by an entire series of waterways, canals, rivers and streams that
make the sound of running water heard everywhere.
O the tales of Xi Hu! Our tales tell of the poet, Bai Juyi, who governed
Hanzghou for one of the Tang Emperors in your late eighth century. He
realized that the great dyke that filled the West Lake had been allowed to
collapse, and the farmer’s crops were dying of drought. He built a far
greater dyke and raised the lake levels so that the farmers became wealthy.
He loved the lake so much, he visited it every day, built a causeway linking
the Broken Bridge with Solitary Hill and planted peach and willow trees
along the dyke. Later governors planted more gardens and trees, so what you
see now are the descendants of gardens many hundreds of years old!
Take a look about you. For centuries Hangzhou has focused on building
gardens, bridges and piers so that all may share the “ten scenes” of our
Lake. What are they? They each have a phrase expressing the essence of
each view – and in our hot, sultry summers, nothing is more popular than
excursions on the lake, which lets the summer city breathe. Our scenes are:
Spring Dawn on the Su Causeway
Viewing Fish at Flower Pond
Winery Yard and Lotus Pool
Evening Bell ringing at the Nanping Hill
Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake
Leifeng Pagoda in Evening Glow
Three Pools mirroring the Moon
Lingering Snow on the Broken Bridge
Twin Peaks Piercing the Clouds
As you can see, there are many small temples and tea houses along the sides
of Xi Chu, so while you rest and enjoy your Longjing green tea, let me tell you a bit about the
history of our city.
Hangzhou first began to be known as a trading city around 2,200 years ago.
Once one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China, its great wall was built
during the Sui Dynasty in 591 AD. It was the capital of the Wuyue Kingdom
for 200 years, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The city
was again a capital of China during the Southern Song Dynasty and perhaps
reached the zenith of its power in the period just before China was invaded
by the Mongols.
The city was then known as Lin’an, and our historians say there may have
been as many as nearly half a million citizens living here by the year 1200.
The town spread well beyond its ancient, mighty walls, and trade led to
thousands of ambitious peasants coming to the city to better their lives.
But in 1276, when the Mongols came, the Court fled to Guandong. By then,
they say that nearly a million people lived in Hangzhou, making it the most
populous city in the world in those ancient days. Though it was no longer a
capital, Italian explorer Marco Polo found it a beautiful city even after
the Mongol conquest. During the years of the great Kublai Khan, a hundred
years after the Mongol conquest, Polo could still write that, “[It is]
beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world. The number and
wealth of the merchants, and the amount of goods that passed through their
hands, was so enormous that no man could form a just estimate…."
Hangzhou was lucky. It survived the Mongol conquest and continued building
its trade and wealth. The city was beautiful, but it had tens of thousands
of houses built – of wood! And as you can imagine, that meant great fires.
In one of the biggest fires in the 13th century, they say more than 30,000
homes were burned to the ground: far more than the entire population of your
Paris and London combined! Of course, with the West Lake so close, at least
there was always water for fire-fighting; but the government dared not risk
so precious a jewel again. It built watchtowers and devised a system of
lantern and flag signals to define where fires began and route more than
3,000 soldiers to put them out!
Hangzhou was also a great port on the Yangtze River, until the silt from the
river began to fill in the harbor in the Ming Dynasty period. Now we do not
have so much river commerce, but rather the sail and houseboats of those who
can afford to maintain them sailing merrily on Xi Hu.
Have you finished your tea? Perhaps you will come with me now to see
beautiful Xi Hu itself. Yes, the district is open for settlement, but I
must warn you – it is very, very beautiful, and that makes it very, very
dear. Do you have a city counselor in your family? Otherwise, you must
negotiate your own arrangements. Who would not want to live in Xi Hu?
But perhaps you prefer gardens? Then the lovely suburb of Suzhou is ideal.
While Xi Hu has its lake, Suzhou has its famous planned gardens and canals,
where golden blossoms gently fall and drift along the calm waterways and
everyone travels by boat. As you enter the inner city through the towering
city walls, the boats slide into the “water gates.” Silk and gardens – we
plant meticulously designed gardens and spin and export the most beautiful
silk in China, and you might say war is our hobby – but ONLY a hobby. The
great scholar and general, Sun Tsu, lived in a modest house in Suzhou with
the most exquisite gardens, where he pondered the truth of war while
smelling fragrant flowers.
If you love both flowers and water, you have yet a third choice – the
district of the Grand Canal, which travels from north to south in China and
is longer than any canal in the world. We have many names for it: Yu-ho
(Imperial River), Yun-ho (Transport River), and Yunliang-ho (Tribute-bearing
River). Our people literally live on the river. As I am believed to be a
patron of seafarers, I include this great waterway as well, so you will have
my blessing!
Imagine living on a small junk or houseboat tied to the mooring stones along
the Canal. Great stone walls protect the waterway. If you traveled it from
top to bottom, you would find it controls five rivers and has 24 locks and
60 bridges! You can see China as it should be seen: in slow restfulness as
the current quietly moves you from one intriguing region of China to the
next. Come back to Hangzhou; leave for Louyang or Beijing; laugh at the
bustling merchants traveling to and fro along the Imperial Road that runs
parallel to the Canal. Meanwhile, you are laying down, sipping tea and
watching China go by!
I have always had a soft spot for Hangzhou – perhaps because water and
gardens bless and bring peace to any city, and no city has as much of these
as Hangzhou.
Now I see you are no longer worried about my three faces, for they look
forward, backward and beyond, as does Hangzhou. And remember, this is the
Year of the Pig in China, so I expect your prayers and offerings for good
fortune in the year ahead! I hope you will spend it in lovely Hangzhou.
SOURCES
Wikipedia/Hangzhou
Ten Scenes of Hangzhou
Hangzhou, Capital of Zeijiang Province
The West Lake of Hangzhou
Note: You can hear how various Chinese greetings – like Wu An – sound in
Chinese at the Yuanh AudioChinese greeting site.
City-builder: Kutulun Khan
|
