Day Trippin' - Wuzhen (Water Town)

Wuzhen, the water town...click for more pics.

Jennifer's school host, Cynthia, asked us last week to join her and a few other teachers for a day trip to an ancient city called Wuzhen. Apparently, the school was providing everything including lunch so we both happily agreed and we were honored that they invited us.

Wuzhen (乌镇) is a scenic town, part of Tongxiang, in northern Zhejiang Province, China. It lies within the triangle formed by Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shanghai.

In Chinese, wu means crow or dark, and zhen means a small town.

Wuzhen's population is about 6,000 and it is located in the center of the six ancient towns south of Yangtze River, about 11 miles north of the city of Tongxiang. Wuzhen displays its 2,000-year history with ancient stone bridges floating on water (just like Venice!), its stone pathways between mottled walls, and its delicate wood carvings and other gorgeous hand made crafts.

Also, setting it apart from other towns, it is best known for ancient Chinese fabrics, a clear wine that comes in a variety of strengths, and a special treat called the sister-in-law biscuit.

After a brisk bike ride to Jenn's school at 5:45am, we boarded a large, luxurious tour bus in the dark and pretty much slept for the first hour or so. Then a tour guide appeared from out of nowhere, jumped up to the front, turned on a microphone, and a sound system came to life at a screeching 110db! The Who would have been proud. We were then greeted to a 25-minute non-stop explanation of our whole day ahead - all in Mandarin of course.

Reminds me to do some research on the prevalence of deafness in China. From the traffic, to karaoke, to the sound system on a bus - the Chinese typically listen to everything at, and I'm not kidding, at least three to four times louder volume than regular conversation. Makes sense though, because they also talk very, very loud in general.

As Jenn and I settled in to watch a DVD and recalibrate our hearing (we needed to fill another two hours of bus ride), Cynthia politely translated our day ahead. But just as quickly as she had turned forward in her seat, she whipped back around and began yelling at us! Then the whole bus began yelling at us! We jerked our headphones out of our ears and our look of bewilderment must have tipped her off - suddenly in broken English we learned that as hosts, me and Jennifer were obligated to sing the first songs on the trip - more karaoke!!

We scoffed, we pleaded, we acted like we were too sleepy to understand, we even simply said no thanks we just don't know any songs, but Cynthia is quite domineering and can't you just imagine what it sounds like when a busload of 50 Chinese women teachers decide that a song will be sung and we are just the folks to sing it?? it was mayhem!

Having already expunged any shred of shame with my last evening of karaoke, I jumped right up, found out quickly who just celebrated a birthday and belted out my best rendition of the only song I know by heart - Happy Birthday! I put in some crooning ala Frank Sinatra, and the whole bus loved it. Jenny didn't miss a beat either, she jumped up and pounded out a rousing version of Jingle Bells and before anyone could say Merry Christmas, she cranked out Old McDonald Had a Farm and mixed in some And B.I.N.G.O Was His Name, O!...didn't matter - we had them going by then and at least a dozen teachers followed us up with songs for the next hour...

Entrance to Wuzhen...click for more pics.

We finally pulled up to the front entrance, gathered all 50+ of us for a group picture, and thus began another first for me and Jenn - our first guided group tour here in China.

Within seconds of getting our ticket punched at the entrance and entering this amazing city walls, we were already being left in the dust! I think we saw some beds from the Qing Dynasty, and I remember whizzing by some impressive blue and white fabrics that I believe were original designs from about one thousand years ago, and I could swear I saw a few pictures of some guy named Mao Dun, but I was breathing pretty hard and my eyes were blurry by that time.

You don't creep, shuffle, or even walk when you are in a guided tour in China - like Forest Gump says, "You bet-ter be run-ning'!"

If we kept up we saw nothing in focus, if we stopped even for a second to grab a picture, we were immediately mobbed and literally trampled by the tour group twice our size seconds behind us. And we counted two dozen tours just at the entrance. It was maddening and it reminded me of shuffling our way through the train terminal during Spring Festival in Shanghai.

We caught our breaths by sticking our heads out beautifully adorned windows with wooden lattice framework and taking a few seconds to admire the foliage nestled within the seemingly infinite tiny square gardens created by the mazes of halls and rooms and shops.

I heard a guide yelling into a microphone (duh, in Mandarin!) and then I caught some words on a plaque and I let myself get left behind - history was calling, damn it! It explained people have lived in Wuzhen for thousands of years and over time it has produced a galaxy of talents. That guy named Dun, an outstanding modern Chinese writer, was born here, and his masterpiece, 'The Lin's Shop', describes vividly the life of Wuzhen. In 1991, Wuzhen was authorized as the Provincial Ancient Town of History and Culture, so ranking first among the six ancient towns south of the Yangtze River.

Wuzhen's uniqueness lies in its layout, being about 1.5 miles long and divided into six districts. These are: Traditional Workshops District, Traditional Local-Styled Dwelling Houses District, Traditional Culture District, Traditional Food and Beverage District, Traditional Shops and Stores District, and Water Township Customs and Life District. Wandering along the east-west-east circuit created by these six districts, we tried to enjoy the atmosphere of the traditional cultures, over 120 ancient bridges, and the original ancient features of the town that have been preserved intact.

We ended up laughing at the sweat on our brows, shallow breathing, and promises to never, ever hang with a guided tour group again. Then Cynthia found us and did some more yelling, this time in Chinese, and we felt like we were being scolded for getting lost (they are very worried about our safety here).

It was worth it.

We piled back on the bus, then got surprised an hour later with another stop - this time at what was apparently the holy grail of shopping - over 1,000 stores of leather goods, blue jeans, shoes, and a row of restaurants (one was even Western so we were in heaven!). We had lunch and it was delicious. We found out my size in jeans and shirts and even found my first pair of jeans in China (at a great price, too!). We walked in a mall so big they use street names.

We piled back on the bus, again, and made it home by 8:30pm, tired of course, but the chilly bike ride back to our apartment woke us up, again.

I have some dumplings steaming on the stove right now, we will share some sister-in-law biscuits for desert, and we may just open up some of that famous Wuzhen wine we picked up for a steal because I told the vendor "Sorry, don't have time to haggle, this is all I got - gotta go!" He folded like a deck of cards and accepted my meager offering of yuan for his prized vino, but yelled like a shotgun the whole time...

As the Chinese say, "Bye. Bye." (I'm not kidding...;)