Armchair Traveller: Suzhou, Jiangsu Province

Made famous by scholars and retired officials over a number of dynasties, Suzhou is commonly referred to as China's Venice . The gardens are considered to represent the peak of Chinese traditional garden design, with ponds, pathways, pavilions and stanzas of bamboo laid out in such a way as to make the smallest courtyard seem boundless. Canals surround the town, penetrating the closely-built houses like alleyways, and linking the town with the Grand Canal joining Beijing with the former capital of Hangzhou. When Marco Polo visited at the end of the thirteenth century, he described the town in detail, marvelling at the 'thousands' of moon-arch bridges spanning the waterways, astonished that it surpassed his own home towm of Venice. Though tyrannical leaders from dynastic and post-dynastic times have lorded over the town, most of the architectural wonders have survived onslaught by rebellious peasants and the Japanese, and are still in existance today.

oliver@halo.ps.uci.edu