Jessica sells us silk!

Day 4   Friday, November 15, 2019   Suzhou and Wuxi

Oh Jessica Jessica. How doth thee sell so well? Her smile belies a cunning salesperson, who cracked us up and made sure we knew that if we just ordered today, she'd throw in the kitchen sink! She could have sold frozen foods to the Eskimos.

Our day began, of course, with breakfast, and that meant our first experience with "exotic" Chinese culinary treats. The elaborate buffet was fun to explore to see what all they offered, and some of them were quite noteworthy. I wrote down several items a few days later in Shanghai, but I will note them here because it illustrates what we saw each morning: salted fish skins, cold black fungus, delicious seaweed, five fragrant mustard, fried west blue flowers, dried scented radish, Xiangxi cloud silk, red sugar hair cake, sour and spicy lotus root belt. Wow. Janet and I did try several exotic items over our days in both China and Japan, and sometimes we were okay with them, other times not!

Our first morning stop was the silk factory. Who knew we wouldn't get out of there before shelling out U.S. $540? But that was before we embraced Jessica!

In the photo above, she is explaining the benefits of "dupion" silk, which she made us believe was so much better than normal silk, and how they specialize in it and therefore we should definitely buy from THEM. Dupion silk is reeled from two or more entangled cocoons, creating tightly woven yardage with a stronger and highly lustrous surface. She pulled on it, breathed through it, let us try to push through it, let us breathe through it. By golly, we'd better not miss this opportunity to BUY it!

Their display shows single cocoons in the three jars on the left, double cocoons in the two jars on the right. The captions above say how double cocoons happen when two or even three worms, for want of space, spin the silk together. It states: "Silk threads reeled from a double cocoon are uneven, thicker, and harder than normal silks." Jessica milked this idea for all it was worth...literally!

She first gave us explanations for how silk comes to be, and some of its history. Silk embroideries were the imperial dynasties' #1 export for many centuries. It is shiny, lustrous, soft yet strong, and can be brilliantly dyed. The history of Chinese silk stretches back more than 2,000 years. China produces about 150,000 metric tons annually, far more than the rest of the world combined (78% of the world's silk). Silk garments were worn by emperors and royalty, and it was a status symbol. Common people were prohibited from wearing it.

Silk moths lay around 500 eggs during their lifespan of four to six days. After the eggs hatch, the caterpillars are fed a diet of mulberry leaves in a controlled environment. They weave a cocoon, whose filaments might be 600 to 900 meters long! Several filaments are twisted together to make a thread. The silk threads are then woven into cloth or used for fine embroidery.

 Jessica never stopped with the pitch. I wonder what Jack and Rob were thinking when I snapped this photo!

She made sure we all could feel how soft it was. Silk comforters are warm in winter and cool in summer, so it's obviously the best bedding there ever was. And on she went, full of humor and we laughed and laughed. "And today, our sales price is not just half the list price, NO! It's a full 70% off, and today only, we'll throw in a 2nd comforter for FREE! And if you buy the entire package, the price is NOT xyz, No, it's ONLY this tiny amount!!! You cannot pass up this opportunity, and you'll always thank me for the rest of your lives!"

Then the sales ladies swooped in to get our orders handled before we might change our minds. And all this was only for the bedding. We then went upstairs for garments and swaths of silk for making your own clothes. In all, our group bought quite a bit of stuff. I even bought 100% silk underwear, because Jessica explained how (besides being warm in winter and cool in summer) you could wash it in the sink (with shampoo) and it would dry in just 20 minutes! Sure enough, I wore them most of the remaining days of our tour, returning home with about 8 or 9 unused cotton undies.

Our next stop was the Grand Canal boat ride. The Grand Canal is an ancient grandeur project linking Beijing and Hangzhou, the town we visited in two more days. It is the earliest and longest man-made watercourse in the world, with an overall length of 1794 km (1112 miles). Its first portion was completed in 486 B.C. and open to navigation through the entire length in 1293.

 Here we are on the boat, ready to cruise. Not all of us chose this optional tour.

Steve mentioned that one of the emperors took the Grand Canal from Beijing to Wuxi, and it took 3 months. The canal was built, expanded, and maintained as a way to link the north and south, as well to link to the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.

Other canal boats. With recorded labor of five million men and women, the first major section of the Grand Canal was completed in the year 605.

Different kinds of homes compared to all the high rises we saw from the freeways and the city outskirts. 

Laundry to dry, stretched from the home to the bridge.

One of the bridge tunnels had wall paintings, but my photos did not come out.

A different kind of canal boat.

It got pretty narrow in parts, but this was a feeder canal, not the main Grand Canal. 

Rounding a bend. By the year 735, it was recorded that about 165,000 tons of grain were shipped annually along the canal. In the southern portion where we were, the canal is still in heavy use to this day. 

We departed the boat onto this crowded shopping street, where Steve led us to his recommendation for where to eat lunch - a dumpling restaurant.

Being a crowded pedestrian shopping street does not stop scooters from speeding through beeping their horns. Here's a fairly older woman with her granddaughter(?) while a young family with two children in tow pass her going the other direction. 

Most of us from the boat did eat at the dumpling restaurant, and Steve helped us order. We had both pork and crab dumplings, plus a bowl of won ton soup and beers. We liked everything!

Right behind us there on the 2nd floor was this rice steamer, keeping us warm, and those bags of rice. 

The restaurant was right on the canal, and here's a view from our 2nd floor. 

Here's the view the other direction.

After eating, we still had some time before we regrouped, so Janet and I walked along the canal a bit. We reached a spot we had seen from the boat ride, with a wall full of white notes attached. We had asked Steve about them, and he said they were love notes. There was a nearby desk where you could purchase them.

We went in a few shops and this product caught our eyes! Yum. Sort of like those "dried fish skins" we would see at breakfast in a couple more days.

Before getting back to the group, we used a public toilet. Luckily, I needed only to pee (they always had normal urinals for the "superior sex"), but I took this photo anyway to illustrate what Janet and the women faced regardless of #1 or #2. I must relate how Janet fretted for many weeks leading up to our trip after hearing horror stories about these public "squat holes". We always tried to have toilet paper with us since they had none, and Janet did her best to "hold it" if this was the only toilet available. The term "five star" came to be used if a restroom had normal toilets and didn't stink too much. 

Once we gathered again and walked to where our bus would pick us up, I got some photos of the scooters scooting by, because I had been surprised to see how 90+% of the riders used big front covers for their hands, arms, and bodies. They were like sleeping bags to fit over you, I presume to keep you warm and keep kicked-up debris from getting onto your clothes.

During our two-hour bus trip heading west to Wuxi ("woo-she"), Steve talked to us about lots of stuff. Here are some things I wrote down:  1) when a woman has a baby, she gets to "lie down" for 64 days, and they give her a different kind of soup every one of those days; 2) bird spittal. Worm fungus; 3) Steve began to learn English in school when he was 13 yrs old. Teachers don't really know how to teach it, so it's referred to as Chinglish; 4) an apt in Shanghai costs 10,000 yuan/month to rent, or 8 million yuan to purchase; 5) Wuxi means "no tin", which the emperor decided to name the city to try to avoid attackers who might want to steal their valuable tin, which this area had been famous for; 6) the area is known for its rice wine, raspberries, king-sized honey peaches (1 lb), and pearls and shrimp from the lake.

This is during our walk on Lake Taihu, once we arrived in Wuxi. The town is a prominent historical and cultural city and has been a thriving economic center since ancient times. They produce and export rice, silk and textiles. Population is about 3.5 million, and in the last few decades it has emerged as a major producer of electrical motors, software, solar technology and bicycle parts. There's a huge Apple factory here.

As soon as we arrived in town, a local guide named Vivian joined us. But instead of giving us any sort of tour, the first thing we did was to be let free for 45 minutes to wander around this Lihu Park on Lake Taihu. We guessed that some original plan had fallen through, and they needed to kill some time. Wuxi lies in the southern delta of the Yangtze River, and this lake is huge, the 3rd largest in China. It has 90 islands, and is part of the Grand Canal.  

 After we departed the lake, we went to this famous Nanchang Street tourist area. We were given 90 minutes on our own to see the sights. On the way, Vivian preached to us about health, nature, and the "good life" in Wuxi. She said it's more relaxed here, and husbands "do more".

At the start of the street was this sign, labeled "tourist trail - meter zero". Pretty funny. The 1.6-kilometer (one mile) Nanchang Street is on the south bank of the Grand Canal and has been made into an entertainment destination with restaurants, bars, cafes, snack stores and bookstores.

 This restaurant had a fire-breathing dragon at its entrance. 

There was a Nestlé ice cream shop on the other side of the Grand Canal (Nestlé owns Häagen Dazs). Just down this street, they were filming something, probably a movie, as we walked past from where our bus dropped us off. Later when we walked past here, they were on dinner break and there was food set out in abundance.

It was an attractive walk, but the public restroom received an F from Janet. She held off, and luckily found a higher-rated one later.

And there's the same Grand Canal that we cruised on back in Suzhou (Wuxi is to the northwest of Suzhou). 

We saw a few rickshaws in China, but a whole lot of them in Kyoto later. 

The canal was pretty at night! Loved the reflections. 

They had cruises on this section of the Grand Canal as well, and one could take it all the way to Suzhou where we were earlier in the day. 

Once back to the hotel, nine of us decided to walk a short ways for dinner to where there were several choices. Lucky for us, four or five of the nine could speak Chinese, so we figured that we could navigate the adventure with better odds than if we went alone.

Once we reached the street with all the restaurants, Audrey and Andrea went inside several to check them out for us. Finally at the one we ended up going on into, they brought out a menu and discussed it with a local. We all gathered to look and listen to the spoken Chinese!

We deemed this restaurant okay, so up the stairs we went to a room with four large round tables. Andrea has the menu at this moment, but we passed it around, looked at the photos, asked Audrey what the descriptions were, until we all could choose what we wanted. In the background was an all-men table who were REALLY loud.

 A selfie! Those men behind us were SO loud.

LOL, Audrey didn't want to leave any of the soup she ordered!

David had a nice conversation with this kid, one of three playing in the room while their parents were eating. As I recall, David asked him lots of questions about his life as a kid growing up here, and told him things about the USA.

The beer was plentiful and very light, so it helped wash down our spicy dinners. The total cost in U.S. dollars for our big dinner and beers was a mere $10.

After dinner, we split up and different couples went different ways to see more sights. Just a few doors down from the restaurant was a barber shop, and Audrey mentioned that she needed a haircut. I said that I did too, so she went in to discuss prices and their availability. $5 per haircut - "come on in."

The whole process was pretty funny, since we had to use Audrey to interpret what kind of haircut I wanted, etc. Janet had fun taking lots of photos.

This young man took such a long time to cut my hair, seemingly wanting to cut each strand of hair three times each. A mother of one of the barbers scooted home and brought back her kids to see us, because, according to what Audrey said, the kids had never seen Westerners before!

Is he finally finished? Janet got such a kick out of this cute, gay hair stylist.

Okay! Done! Everyone was happy. Audrey was happy with her haircut too. Such a fun event doing a local thing, not a touristy event! We then walked back to the hotel and hit the hay. What a day we had.

Beginning the tour!

Day 3  Thursday, November 14, 2019   Shanghai and Suzhou

Janet is with Jack, her seat mate during the 13-hour flight to Beijing. This photo is from when we arrived at the tour-in-progress on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Even though we were just beginning, it was Day 3 (of 15) according to UTO's itinerary.

All seven of us from the UTO tour were on the 5 am shuttle back to the Beijing Airport. We got there plenty early, and it was a good thing since the check-in line was so long. I left the to buy Janet and me each a cup of coffee, and they were $5 each! We eventually got checked in and our boarding passes, and Janet and I went to our gate, and Jack went with the others to theirs so he could wait with his brothers. Janet and I had a bowl of noodles for breakfast, a preview of common foods to come.

They served a meal on the 2 hr 30 min flight, and it had some strange stuff. I asked the stewardess what one of the items was, and she said that she did not know the English word for it.

We found a UTO guy at the Shanghai Airport, and he escorted us for the over-one-hour drive into downtown. We eventually passed some wonderful scenery and I asked questions, but the escort was not too talkative.

At the destination on Nanjing Road, our guide, Steve, was waiting for us, but the other 19 people in our group were off finding lunch and looking around. I asked Steve what we had missed on the city tour that morning, and he said that they had seen only the Bund. Thus, it had not been much of a city tour! The four from the other airport hadn't arrived yet, so Jack, Janet and I wandered off down the street to see some sights. As happened so often during our days in China, we were left on our own.

Nanjing Road is the world's longest shopping district, around 5.5 km (3.4 miles) long, and attracts over 1 million visitors daily. We were on the eastern end of it, which is the main shopping street of this entire city. The street is named after the city of Nanjing, capital of the province to the northwest.

This was an attractive arcade front, with the signs and flowers. East Nanjing Road here is a dedicated commercial zone. At its far eastern end is the central section of the Bund. Immediately west of the Bund precinct was traditionally the hub of European-style restaurants and cafes.

This old street car was now a little cafe. Nanjing Road dates to when the Europeans dominated this part of Shanghai, so there was a decidedly European look to the buildings.

We liked the signage and "cartoon" characters on this store.

It was indeed busy there. We also got our first taste of how all the scooters weave in and around pedestrians, and typically ignore traffic signals. You had to watch out!

At the appointed time, we all met back with Steve, with the luggage from us seven late comers. We gradually met some of the others, and explained how we missed our flights the night before. We all walked a few blocks to another street where the bus met us, and we were on our way to Suzhou ("sue-joe"). It was a 60-mile drive due west, but took a very long time due to traffic. We were amazed at all the high-rise apartment building along the entire route. Shanghai has 24 million people, Suzhou has another 11 million, and it was solid city the entire distance between the two.

This map shows our four-city route over the next several days. Suzhou is west of Shanghai, then Wuxi is a little northwest at the top of Taihu Lake, and Hangzhou is to the south below the lake. We then returned to Shanghai.

Along the way, Steve did a lot of talking. Here's what I wrote in my notes: 1) 80% of their electricity still comes from burning coal; 2) until 1980, they also burned coal in the homes, but switched to propane tanks; 3) air quality is bad, so they get only 150 days a year of sunshine; 4) in 1990, they stopped burning crops following the harvest to improve air quality; 5) Among the 10 most polluted cities in the world, China has seven;

6) "APEC Blue" refers to the rare blue sky in Beijing during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 2014, because the government shut down 56 coal factories for a month to clear up their skies to impress the attendees. Also, roughly 10,000 factories in the regions surrounding Beijing were forced to suspend production during APEC, and an additional 39,000 ran on reduced schedules to alleviate pollution. Around 11.7 million vehicles were kept off the roads by a ban on alternative days on cars with even- or-odd-numbered license plates. All of this did allow the Beijing skies to turn blue, but at a huge economic cost to the affected businesses and workers. (Essentially the gov't said: "Tough beans, you guys.") Because of its transience, the new phrase "APEC blue" refers to something being wonderful but also fleeting;

7) After 1950, the Cultural Revolution began. Mao prohibited religion, and burned down the temples; 8) Motorists must pay 85,000 yuan ($12,000) to be able to drive on the elevated parts of the freeways during rush hours, 7 to 10 am, and 4 to 7 pm; 9) China has 100 electric car companies. By 2030, only electric cars will be allowed. Steve mentioned numerous financial incentives the government provides so that people will buy electric cars, such as no 85,000 yuan fee to use the elevated freeway lanes; 10) China imports 60% of their oil.

11) During Chinese New Year, the big cities "empty out" as people head west to their home towns and families. Prior to the bullet trains in 2008, 400 people would crowd into train carriages meant for 160 because the slow trains (120 km/hr - 74 mph) took up to 34 hours to reach their destinations. Now, the trains go 300 km/hr - 186 mph) and the trip lasts only 9 hours. Thus, the carriages are no longer overcrowded; 12) women tend to act "helpless". Traditional culture has always placed men above women. Men are thought to be superior. Men are the breadwinners, women are the caretakers and are expected to deliver a son.

Once we reached Suzhou, our first stop was Master of the Nets Garden, a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating from 1140. The painting above showed the villa's general layout, with the home on the right, and the gardens to the left. Steve explained the traditional layout and how visitors would arrive and be welcomed, depending on their status.

"The garden demonstrates Chinese garden designers' adept skills for synthesizing art, nature, and architecture to create unique metaphysical masterpieces. The Master of the Nets is particularly regarded among garden connoisseurs for its mastering the techniques of relative dimension, contrast, foil, sequence and depth, and borrowed scenery."

Steve was explaining where and how the men sat and talked, versus the women. The men sat in the interior of the square, and would stare straight ahead and show no emotion as they spoke, to mask any fears or enthusiasm that might be exploited. The women sat outside the inner square, and would speak to each other (but not to the men!) more openly. Steve also pointed out that unmarried women had to sit in chairs with no backs, as an unspoken encouragement to accept a man's hand in marriage.

This is one of many carvings in the walls of the villa. Going from room to room, we had to step over high sills, and Steve said that the higher the sill, the more prominent the citizen and his status. The villa and gardens had various owners over the centuries who made additions and changes, and finally the owner in 1958 donated it to the government.

This mosaic on the ground leading to the gardens had much symbolism, but I'm forgetting it. I recall the five darker sections surrounding it having special meaning. The garden was separated into themes representing the four seasons.

The rock formations around the pond were filled with students who were all sketching the scenery.

 The cypress tree dates to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). I don't have a photo of the pine that was said to be several centuries old. Anyway, the gardens were indeed attractive.

This was a carved carriage pulled by men, to transport the rich upper-class guys who would have owned such a villa.

Once back on the bus, we went to our hotel. Along the way, we saw this common sight - electric scooters. They buzzed everywhere in China! In recent years, scooters have almost completely replaced motorcycles. During our visit, we would always be amazed at how much stuff they would carry on their scooters, including all their kids. Some scooters looked like full delivery trucks, packed in front, on the sides, and up high at the back.

 I have no more photos for this day. Janet and I were so glad to finally check into our room so that we could take showers and put on CLEAN clothes for the first time since Monday morning in Monroe, OH. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, but this turned out to be our least-favorite meal of the trip. We were too tired to seek a nearby restaurant. The hotel was new, and so were the waitresses!

Steve was in the restaurant to help us navigate the i-pad menu, but most of us still got something we didn't understand or like. Their beer was unrefrigerated, but many of us ordered it anyway. Janet and I agreed to a "spicy pork" dish, but the pork was like bacon, and the peppers were hard to eat.

Our friends from Boston (and Romania) at our table accidentally ordered a fish, complete with head and teeth, that cost 430 yuan ($61)!! They had no idea, and didn't even like the fish all that much. And since they didn't accept credit cards, Fatu had to return to his room to get the necessary cash. The boys (Jack, Ed, and Rob) ordered a chicken soup, and it was delivered with the whole, uncut chicken sitting in the pot! And they were given only chop sticks! They, of course, had to ask to have it prepared so they could actually eat it, so the waitress used forks to tear the meat from the bones.

We later heard other "horror" stories about what our group experienced at the restaurant. Steve tried to explain the next day that the new staff there was not yet experienced in how to serve Westerners, and he hoped we'd understand. He said that the hotel had nice "hard service" (its structure and furnishings) but poor "soft service" (from the staff).

Our group:

Eric Liposvetsk, New Jersey   (need your wife's and daughter's names, and your city)

Fatu, Boston  (need all names you're willing to provide!)

Janet Amuchastegui, Monroe, Ohio

Ken Mercurio, Monroe, Ohio

Giri and Sumi Giritharan, Toronto

Fred & Liling Chang,  Brea, CA

Latreace Ashford, Miami, FL

Tonja Jefferson, Miami, FL

Mike and Jeannette Rorich Yakima, WA

Audrey & Dave, San Jose, CA  (last name?)

Daokubo@gmail.com (Forgetting who this is)

Dave Wong, San Francisco

Andrea Chang, San Francisco

Benita, San Francisco  (need more)

Jugiff@optonline.net  (forgetting who this is)

Bob Gifford, Sayville, NY

Jack Gifford, Tucson, AZ

Peggy & Nick, Rowland Heights, CA

Ed Gifford, Sayville, NY

 The traditional beliefs of the Chinese culture has always placed the men in front of the women.  The men are thought to be the superior of the two genders.  The men are thought of as the breadwinners of the family and the women are thought of as the caretakers.  This belief has fed into the idea that men play a more important role in society, and also the more important gender. The traditional beliefs of the Chinese culture has always placed the men in front of the women.  The men are thought to be the superior of the two genders.  The men are thought of as the breadwinners of the family and the women are thought of as the caretakers.  This belief has fed into the idea that men play a more important role in society, and also the more important gender.