China 2007

Today's activity would consist of an all-day excursion to the city of Suzhou, a 35-minute ride by train. We drove to the Shanghai train station, and tried to enter the soft-seat (first class, as opposed to sitting on the floor) waiting area. But our elderly guide had an argument with the station attendant, so we were relegated to the waiting room of the masses.

Our train was soon called, and there was an rush of people to the platform. It was deadly business. We walked along the platform for quite a ways - the train must have had about fifteen coaches - up to the first class compartment. Our guide brainlessly directed us to our seats, and then realized we were in the wrong car. So we had to fight the onslaught of oncoming passengers, back onto the platform, then into the correct car.

The ridiculously stringent platform guards whistled frantically for people to board the train faster, although there was nothing they could do in the backlog. Whistle after whistle in our ears only made us more pushy and nervous. The inside of the train was comfortable, however - cool with big windows and soft seats that shot forward at the press of a button. The train closed its doors with the traditional beeping, and slowly and smoothly departed. It seemed to speed up for a long, long time. I was surprised to look out the window at a blurry countryside. How fast were we really going? A scrolling display alternated between Chinese and English at the center of the car, and here was displayed the answer.

Two-hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, almost 160 mph. Once the trip to Suzhou took an hour, but on this express train it took more like thirty minutes.

The station wasn't anything special. We crossed a street so jammed that it looked like a puzzle waiting to be solved by invisible hands from the sky. Crossing the street and almost escaping the madness, we passed through a narrow blue-lined passageway and over a clunky metal bridge. Heaps of trash were all around us, and the air smelled of cigarettes and sewer. The sky was still black and barely dripping, and people were everywhere.

Our guide was a stark contrast, however. Over the eight short hours he would lead us, our group would fall in love with him. He was young, single, well-spoken and funny. His first statement was a joke:

"You know why it is so hard for me to lead these tour groups? Let me show you an example. The UN asked all its members, 'Please explain your honest opinion regarding the food shortage in the rest of the world.' Well, Africa didn't understand the word 'food', Eastern Europe didn't understand the word 'honest', Western Europe didn't understand the word 'shortage', communist Asia didn't understand the word 'opinion', and America didn't understand the phrase 'the rest of the world'." What a way to kick off our tour. That guide has balls.

He described the town of Suzhou as a place for "recycled teenagers" - the elderly - because the living pace was slow. The city was short and suburban, leaving all the high rises to Shanghai. Suzhou was known for its gardens and silk.

The first garden we visited was gigantic. Small rooms, some for men and some for women, were scattered around the outskirts. Large ponds where the usual koi swarmed any crumb filled the innards of the garden. The prized area of the garden was our last stop, the bonzai garden. It was quite simplistic, and very peaceful.

On our way to the silk factory, where we would observe the process of silk production, we passed through the city walls and over the city moat traditional to all of the cities we've visited. Until a decade ago, almost everything outside of these walls was farmland.

The silk factory wasn't huge, and it looked more like a midsize company's office reception area. We were taken into a conference room and given a demonstration of the life cycle of a silk worm. Each stage of the worm was floating in the center of a gel-filled cylinder. Finally, we were taken to live silk worms feeding on mulberry leaves. Some freaked out at the sight of the worms, while other embraced them crawling over their various extremities, applying delicate sucking pressure.

We passed onward to watch workers find the thread from the thumb-sized cacoons and feed it into huge looms after they are boiled. They are rolled into rolls, processed, and sent off somewhere else. As we approached the giant mall-like structure, we got a demonstration of the making of comforters, and then, of course, an opportunity to buy one. Or twenty.

The silk fabric was extremely strong, and as five people tried to stretch it a meter, they almost failed. The nimble little Chinese women could do it in a flash, though. After the demonstrations were all complete and we wandered on through the superstore to make purchases of the finest silk China had to offer, I got completely lost. Our guide had left us without much instruction, and Mrs. James and Kozden were nowhere to be found. I joined a group of three or four people, and after frantic searching we found them all at a nearby restaurant for lunch. They hadn't even noticed we had disappeared.

After lunch we visited another garden. This one also featured buildings, ponds, and a bonzai garden. Mollie climbed up to retrieve some vines from above the walkway, and so the grape wars began. Mrs. James ran screaming from us students.

Our day wasn't nearly over. Our next tour was at a silk embroidery institute, where we watched artists create multi-thousand dollar works. The largest piece took one person nearly a year, 8 hours each day. Even for the masters who dedicated their whole lives to the craft, and spent a whole year patiently on one piece, the price - scaled up for profit, mind you - was not a very sufficient salary. Everything was out of our budget, but we have a good time trying to find the most expensive embroidery. The highest we found was half a million yuan.

We voted to take a boat ride along the Grand Canal, so we walked through a quiet little alley and over a bridge to the water's edge. A little water taxi pulled up after a few minutes. We piled into the air conditioned cabin and settled down for the half-hour ride. The Grand Canal, built hundreds and hundreds of years ago in some ancient dynasty, is almost 1,800 kilometers long. The boat just barely fit all of us, and we drifted along rather slowly. We entered a narrow residential alley, along which residents were going to the bathroom, as well as cleaning and cooking things. These houses were hundreds of years old as well, and were lucky to have running water. They call Suzhou the "Venice of China".

We took another vote, as we had several hours before we had to go to the train station. Our next destination: a museum. It was between the museum and another activity that sucked more money out of our pockets.

The museum was just a few air conditioned rooms, each holding a few display cases, mainly local art. Each carving was gigantic, though - two meter long elephant tusks carved where they lay, and huge sandlewood Buddhist vistas. We were also taught how to differentiate a sandlewood fan and a bamboo fan, and led into a huge shop where we could buy all kinds of ornamental carvings.

After some serious patience, it was time to board the train back. We had no problem getting into the waiting room with our guide Tom's expertiese, and the train back was just as comfortable.

We were taken by bus to the Bund for a nighttime view of the Shanghai skyline. Then, we were released.

Our chaperones - primarily Mrs. James - were surely regretful of that decision, because us savage animals devoured an entire California Pizza Kitchen. I had shabu shabu at the hotel's top floor restaurant. Amy and Gina got a top-floor restaurant course at a different hotel for nearly sixty bucks a piece, but my elaborate meal, personal service and great view totaled no more than thirty dollars. Seeing as I was close to home, I just dropped a few floors and fell right asleep.