Su Zhou! Su Zhou!
When I was young, my Mandarin teachers used to teach us about the famous poems and proverbs。 Unfortunately, children, being children, always took things for granted. We never really took the effort to understand the history of China back then, and always belittled the teachers who taught us. Thinking it was just a waste of time, we studied without understanding. Memorized without putting ourselves into the shoes of the great writers and philosophers. We just repeated what was taught to us blindly and poured it all out on exam day. The next day, all would be forgotten and not only we did not improve, we became more haughty and proud. Yes. The History of China, seemed so insignificant then. We thought it was unnecessary to posesss such knowledge as it did not aid us in our exam scores. We thought it was inapplicable in our daily lives. What good would it do to have such information in our brains?
However, the guides of China proved us wrong. They were so proud of their country and their heritage. When they talked about Confucious, 唐伯虎, 江南四大才, Xi-Shi (one of d most beautiful ladies in China), you would have thought they were talking about their most beloved and respected ancestors. They knew their history really well. Which, of course, put me to shame as I did not appreciate history until that very moment. From then on, I vowed to myself to read as much as I can on the history of the world. History not only reveals the solutions of the past , it also holds the key to the future.
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Su Zhou! Su Zhou! It is so quiet here. It feels so calm and peaceful. Relaxing and cooling. So different from the bustling city of Shanghai.
As the province which receives the most rainfall in China, Su Zhou is equivalent to Venice of Italy. This city is filled with canals.
Night Scenery of YangTze River
Su Zhou is a city famous for its young, gentle and captivating ladies. During the reign of the Sui Dynasty, the King ordered all the civilians to build him a canal (Yangtze River)to travel from his palace in the north to the city of Suzhou. (In the olden days, Kings could have up to thousands of concubines and citizens would just accept it as the right of the King. ) The canal took a long time to build and in the process, many lives were sacrificed. As a result, all the citizens were very angry with the king and decided to take his life.
Meantime, the King, who was a haughty person, was too busy and excited about visiting Su Zhou to choose yet another concubine. He knew the commotion was uprising. He knew the people were planning to kill him. So, he specified that he wanted only females as the rowers of the boat, the staff and the cooks. He even made all the women in the country to stand by both banks of the Grand Canal to welcome him to Suzhou. This of course, further angered the citizens. So, when the boat arrived in Suzhou, the King was murdered immediately.
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However, the guides of China proved us wrong. They were so proud of their country and their heritage. When they talked about Confucious, 唐伯虎, 江南四大才, Xi-Shi (one of d most beautiful ladies in China), you would have thought they were talking about their most beloved and respected ancestors. They knew their history really well. Which, of course, put me to shame as I did not appreciate history until that very moment. From then on, I vowed to myself to read as much as I can on the history of the world. History not only reveals the solutions of the past , it also holds the key to the future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Su Zhou! Su Zhou! It is so quiet here. It feels so calm and peaceful. Relaxing and cooling. So different from the bustling city of Shanghai.
As the province which receives the most rainfall in China, Su Zhou is equivalent to Venice of Italy. This city is filled with canals.
Night Scenery of YangTze River
Su Zhou is a city famous for its young, gentle and captivating ladies. During the reign of the Sui Dynasty, the King ordered all the civilians to build him a canal (Yangtze River)to travel from his palace in the north to the city of Suzhou. (In the olden days, Kings could have up to thousands of concubines and citizens would just accept it as the right of the King. ) The canal took a long time to build and in the process, many lives were sacrificed. As a result, all the citizens were very angry with the king and decided to take his life.
Meantime, the King, who was a haughty person, was too busy and excited about visiting Su Zhou to choose yet another concubine. He knew the commotion was uprising. He knew the people were planning to kill him. So, he specified that he wanted only females as the rowers of the boat, the staff and the cooks. He even made all the women in the country to stand by both banks of the Grand Canal to welcome him to Suzhou. This of course, further angered the citizens. So, when the boat arrived in Suzhou, the King was murdered immediately.
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In the daytime, Suzhou is a peaceful province. Weeping willows creep silently and hang from the strong branches of the big tall trees , providing shade for the weary travellers and tranquility for the restless souls.
Suzhou is one of the famous provinces in China for producing scholars as well! Once, when a poor scholar who spent all his savings to go to the city for a major exam and failed, he stopped at one of the temples in Su Zhou for a long rest. As he sat by the river, under the willow tree, he began to pen down his feelings into a poem as below:
As the province with the highest level of rainfall, Suzhou produces the best silk in the whole wide world. With the high level of humidity, the mulberry leaves are of such good quality that people from all over the world flock here just to obtain the silk products of Suzhou, including silk pillows, silk quilts and silk bedsheets. According to the tour guide, silk not only provides warmth to the user, it also absorbs the water in the air which aids in reducing aching of body joints, and reacts with the body chemicals to provide stronger immunity to its users. In winter, it is most advisable to use silk products as it helps to prevent colds and pneumonia.
Worms chewing mulberry leaves. Soon, they'll be in a cocoon.
Suzhou is one of the famous provinces in China for producing scholars as well! Once, when a poor scholar who spent all his savings to go to the city for a major exam and failed, he stopped at one of the temples in Su Zhou for a long rest. As he sat by the river, under the willow tree, he began to pen down his feelings into a poem as below:
As the province with the highest level of rainfall, Suzhou produces the best silk in the whole wide world. With the high level of humidity, the mulberry leaves are of such good quality that people from all over the world flock here just to obtain the silk products of Suzhou, including silk pillows, silk quilts and silk bedsheets. According to the tour guide, silk not only provides warmth to the user, it also absorbs the water in the air which aids in reducing aching of body joints, and reacts with the body chemicals to provide stronger immunity to its users. In winter, it is most advisable to use silk products as it helps to prevent colds and pneumonia.
Worms chewing mulberry leaves. Soon, they'll be in a cocoon.
These coccoon will then be boiled for long hours to soften it and its threads can reach up to 100m or more!
The coccoons are then cut open and pulled as far apart as possible. Layers and layers of it are added upon each other. It is a laborious process. It takes years to produce silk of excellent quality! So much time and man power is put into it! No wonder silk products are so expensive! I will never complain about its price again!
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