By Aaron and Ely
Aaahh, Tongli, a perfect water town. Tongli is a small water town about half an hour from Suzhou with a history
of over 1,000 years. Forty percent of the houses date back to the Ming and Qing dynasties (that 1368-1644 for those
of you who aren't up to date with your Chinese history) It was built around 5 lakes, divided into 7 islands by 15 rivers and connected back together by 49 bridges. Canals everywhere. Water still forms a major role in the lives of its inhabitants. As we walked along the narrow streets we could see people going down to the water to wash their shoes, a rag, a shirt. It was very interesting. Because Tongli is such a pleasant town, it's very busy on the weekends...so, we went on a Monday. Aside from the occasianal tour group, we were the only visitors in sight. Perfect.
We spent a very tranquil and relaxing day. There are somewhere around 50,000 people (it probably isn't even on a geographical map). When visiting with Mogens in Beijing, he said he read that some cities with a population over 1 million people aren't even on the map. It is funny how ideologically different we are in this aspect. Our Chinese counterparts call Suzhou (pop. 6 mill) a small city.
We had to pay 80 RMB to have access to 8 major sites around Tongli. There are some interesting gardens, a couple temples, historic museums, and yes, the only official Sex Museum. Due to the graphic and explicit nature of Tongli's most famous museum, we have decided to leave out details on this aspect of our venture.
Any search on Yahoo or Google should yield oodles of information. The museum has done a good job representing this part of China's culture. Apparently, it was a bigger part of the culture than we were lead to believe. Sorry, no Dr. Johns or Sweet Sensations stores here.
We strolled the streets of this small town. Had dinner near the main waterway. Looked around at the knick-knack shops. Just a slow moving place. It was a nice change up, though we were sure things sped up drastically on the weekends (as they always do anywhere worth traveling).
Tongli was a unique place. In many cities, the "tourist zone" is a place that is maybe much different from the actual city. Fast food chains, hawkers, etc. It is possible to travel to some cities and never leave the tourist zone, thus, never really grasping any true understanding of what the place and the people are like. In Tongli, the locals were living in unison with the tourist zone. So, maybe there was no such thing as a special zone. On one side of the canal there were restaurants and museums, and on the other side there was a Chinese family pinning up their underwear to dry (seriously). A good change up!
4
