Small World, Big City: Suzhou

Southern China is really pretty. On the try and ride over there were two little girls; at first I was a little annoyed because they were super noisy but after a while they started having a conversation and it was actually really funny.

"Do you speak English?" One asked.

"No." Said the other.

"I'll teach you!" She said enthusiastically. Then she proceeded to sing, completely off key, the ABCs. She got to H, and then it all became gibberish. The other girl repeated after her, learning part of the English alphabet, and a whole lot of gibberish.

I was tired when I arrived to Suzhou, and took a cab to my hotel. I've always wanted to stay at a Pod Hotel, not really sure why, so I was pleasantly surprised to find I was in one. They are super small, literally a pod, but since I'm used to NY, the space was not an issue. It actually made me feel at home. The front desk staff are not very nice and the beds are hard, but the air conditioning works well and it's clean enough so I'm happy. The first day, I wandered around a bit, and walked along a busy shopping street. I've become addicted to bubble tea and I have it almost every day. It's not as unhealthy here, since they literally use red tea and a bit of creamer and sugar, unlike the nasty powdered stuff they serve in the US.

My knee is starting to hurt a bit, probably from all of the cobblestone in Nanjing. I took it easy, and stayed at home the rest of the evening and watched some Chinese television. There was some movie, a romantic comedy, about a girl whose boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend and how she tries to get over it. Then there was a bloody and dramatic World War II movie. I like Chinese romantic comedies a lot, they are usually the same, feature good looking people, and have happy endings. I learned some new vocabulary. A mistress is called a "little third", and I also learned some curse words too.

In the movie, they made fun of the people who are obsessed with brand name goods, which is quite common in Asia. It was an interesting point in the movie when the main character, who is a wedding planner, asks a guy who is really nice and accomplished, why he is marrying a dumb girl who is just obsessed with material goods. He says, "for girls like her, Louis Vuitton is a necessity, love is a luxury. For girls like you, Louis Vuitton is a luxury, love is a necessity. She cannot live without luxury goods, so even if the love fades, she will never leave me because she needs to buy things. That's how you build a relationship. You on the other hand, will leave if you do not have love."

I remember a friend of mine from Colombia had said that she and her boyfriend didn't care about marriage because, "I want him to stay with me because he is happy with me, not because a piece of paper forces him to. If he doesn't want to be with me, he should be free to leave, since I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me." They ended up married anyhow, for visa purposes. The dating mentality in China is quite different from the US. A Chinese friend once said, "marriage and romance are separate in China. You marry for status, not for love." I don't know how true that is or not, but I do think that's a bit sad. Perhaps things are changing, though I do think status is very important here. My uncle wanted to introduce me to some guy who is the son of a friend, and my aunt got angry at him and said, "you can't do that, his family is too poor, and we are her family we can't introduce her to someone who is from such a bad family." Even though he is doing well financially, this status of his family is still an issue for them. I don't think Americans, or at least not New Yorkers, take family background into consideration, but the Chinese mentality is if you marry a person, you marry every member of their family as well. They think of these things very thoroughly. My aunt added, "if his parents are poor, that means you will be spending lots of money taking care of them later!"

"That's true," my uncle adds. "What if he won't let you take care of your own parents because he's sending all the money to his family?"

"That wouldn't be an issue for me," I had said, "because I make my own money so I'll just use my own money to do what I want." I think that's also very different in China--men are expected to set up a house and buy things, and the woman moves into the man's family. I do think that men are given more responsibility, but as a result, women still have a role in which they are more dependent.

Here in Suzhou, the tour guide said, "no one wants to have sons anymore because housing is too expensive. Everyone just wants daughters because it's cheaper." I think that notion is changing a bit more, but even my young female chinese friends explain that women don't need to save for a house, typically, because that is the man's job. But what if you get divorced? Then you just have no where to live? Maybe that's too much of an American way of thinking. Regardless, gender roles like this are still bad for women in the long run, because there is no equality really when one is completely dependent on the other. Notably, a friend of mine in China is dating a man who is significantly less well off than she is--she owns a house, and he will move in with her. When asked if that bothers her, she had said, "it's actually better, because I will never have to take any shit from my mother in law, or in laws, because my family has higher status."

Anyhow, enough of Chinese familial relations. Yesterday, j joined a tour group to go to some farther parts of Suzhou. It was cheap, and pretty useful since I didn't have to worry about anything at all. They picked me up at my hotel, and then took me around. It was annoying though, to always be with such a large crowd. As I said before, part of what I like about traveling alone is this sense of peace, which is completely lost when I'm in a group of over 30 people, squeezed into a small room while the tour guide shouts out history. After the first few visits, I just left the tour group to wander around by myself, and I would find them later. The explanations in Chinese can be a bit hard for me to understand completely.

In the first garden, the Lingering Gardens, supposedly a UNESCO world heritage site, there was a lot of calligraphy on the walls. It was built by a doctor for his patients to heal in. Supposedly, he used pearl powder to cure skin disease, which is part of why Suzhou harvests fresh water pearls. According to my guide, the fresh water pearls have a brilliance that salt water pearls do not have. We went to a pearl market later (he gets commission from everything that we buy), and I think it may be true--I went to a pearl market in Beijing, and I do think these were a lot nicer. But it could be in my head.

We also went to a silk factory, where we saw the silk worms being boiled alive in their cocoons, and then unwrapped. Unless you lean forward closely, you cannot even see the thin, silver thread they pull out. It's fine, like hair--maybe even finer. They roll it into bundles; this is what I would imagine a unicorn's mane to look like. Pure, shiny strands of silver, almost invisible because it is so fine. Of course there was another market of silk goods, which were all quite beautifully done. I bought a scarf with water lilies on it.

We also went to a temple and a smaller garden, but those were just okay. Today I am taking a day trip to Luzhi, which is accessible by public bus.