Shanghai and Hangzhou

Shanghai

I don’t remember much about my first and so far the last visit to Shanghai about a quarter of a century ago. I most likely purchased a ticket to Hangzhou while we arrived at Shanghai on an overnight train because we only stayed there for 2-3 nights. Of the places we visited I remember the Temple of Jade Buddha, the busy and crowded streets of Shanghai, Fuxing Park and a cruise to the Yellow Sea on along the Huang Pu river. We also visited Shanghai acrobat show, which was really impressing. It was much better than the one I saw in Beijing some years later.

Lion tamer, Shanghai 1986

Acrobat, Shanghai 1986

Local people seemed to be more open and eager to chat with westerners than in more political minded Beijing. This was even though Shanghai is the birth place of the Chinese Communist Party and the centre of political ideals during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76.) Many people were happy with the reforms Deng Xiao Ping had started a few years earlier. The most memorable moment in Shanghai for me took place in a crowded bus where a small girl of about four years suddenly wanted to hold hands with me. She did this smiling all the time until we left the bus.

Life on the Huang Pu river, Shanghai 1986

Shanghai was already the biggest city in China and the streets in down town area where narrow and crowded. It wasn’t always easy to walk along the masses. As elsewhere in China, bicycle was the most important means of transport.


Hangzhou

It was only about three hours by train from Shanghai to Hangzhou. In Hangzhou the railway station’s ticket booth was  closed when I arrived so I went to look for a hotel. Margun carried on to Guangzhou and now I was totally on my own. After getting a dorm bed, I returned to the station and this time managed to get a ticket to Guangzhou. I now had a couple of days time to see the sights of this city famous for its beauty.

In Hangzhou I strolled around the city and its surrounding countryside visiting a tea farm, Liu He Pagoda and Ling Yin Si Temple. On the other full day I went for a boat trip to West Lake, walked near the lake and sipped local tea. In the tea farm a typical Chinese crowd pushed me so that I then crashed into an elderly lady who fell down. Luckily nothing happened to her and luckily we were not near an embankment where a fall would probably have been much more serious. Since then I have always considered very carefully whether it’s a good idea to get into the crowds and I still follow that rule. Sometimes it just isn’t possible to avoid the crowds.

It was spring time in Hangzhou so many trees unknown to me were in full bloom. The lake was full of big and small boats and people were admiring the scenery on the lake and its islands. Hangzhou really was one of the most beautiful cities in China. The Chinese have a saying: Be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou, die in Liuzhou. (生在苏州, 活在杭州, 吃在广州, 死在柳州). Another saying claims that:  Heaven above, Su and Hang on earth, thus comparing these two cities to heavenly beauty  上有天堂，下有苏杭

West Lake Scenery, Hangzhou 1986