chapter 10 concluded
suzhou for tourists
zhou zhuang village: a TRUE canal town.
Fifty kilometers from Suzhou lies the village of Zhou Zhuang.
While Suzhou is known as the Venice of the East and was ONCE a canal town, today Suzhou is highly developed and most of the ancient city has been obliterated by the large footprint of modern development. Small pockets of Suzhou's ancient canal's remain, but most of that is gone or run underground beneath the large
new developments.
Zhou Zhuang, however, is a TRUE ancient canal town. Development stopped here about 500 years ago. The city has preserved the ancient village intact. No vehicles (including bicycles) are allowed. The "streets" are no wider than 2 meters and canals crisscross the entire village.
So cool is Zhou Zhuang, that on any given day you'll find art students lined up on the banks and bridges sketching and painting away while tourist boats ply the canals
Zhou Zhuang is on the United Nations's List of World Heritage Sites of which there are less than 100 in the whole world. It is truly a fascinating place. If you are in the Suzhou/Shanghai area, don't miss it. (But go on a weekday in the off-season, the Chinese tour groups have discovered it and it can become a zoo on weekends.)
[Side note for film buffs: parts of Willem Dafoe's movie "A Pavilion of Women" (based on the Pearl Buck book of the same title) were also shot in Zhou Zhuang during the summer of '99.] Chapter 10 - Suzhou Tour:
master of the nets
blue wave pavilion
canals
bridges
zhou zhuang
More Suzhou Pictures at the Photo Gallery
This is the end of our Suzhou tour. Go to Chapter 11 for some stories on life in Suzhou today. | 
