Barb and Bill take their first tour of China together, along with Kate Garrett and her Mom, Mary. This post covers our day traveling to Wuxi from Suzhou via the Grand Canal.
Tuesday, November 8, 1988
Our day begins early but not so bright as we leave our hotel in Suzhou and take a short bus ride to the Grand Canal where we board for our boat ride to Wuxi. The morning mist made for an atmospheric start, shall we say.
Our coach awaits 
Once we got underway, the morning haze lifted to reveal an amazingly active section of the Grand Canal. UNESCO calls the Grand Canal, “the longest and oldest canal in the world,” and “the greatest masterpiece of hydraulic engineering in the history of mankind, because of its very ancient origins and its vast scale, along with its continuous development and its adaptation to circumstances down the ages. It provides tangible proof of human wisdom, determination and courage. It is an outstanding example of human creativity, demonstrating technical capabilities and a mastery of hydrology in a vast agricultural empire that stems directly from Ancient China.”
I didn’t know what to expect of the Grand Canal other than a sleepy little waterway like the C&O or Erie Canal, or maybe the Intracoastal Waterway that are my reference points in the U.S. I didn’t expect a working commercial backbone teeming with boats. I certainly didn’t expect all the life, families and small children going about their days on the boats.
The first thing we noticed was simply the volume of traffic: long, low, decrepit but still obviously functional river barges carrying all manner of goods and raw materials.
The second thing we noticed was the incessant tooting of horns as boats signaled: one toot for passing on the left or two toots for passing on the right. It was a non-stop, mostly friendly conversation between nearly all the boats navigating up and down the narrow waterway.
The third thing we noticed was the intense agriculture on both banks of the canal. Wherever there was a patch of unpaved land, there was something being cultivated, or, being November, was brown and had been harvested. We saw haystacks arranged to look like houses (we’re pretty sure they weren’t actually houses…then again, maybe they were), and even a few newer houses for farm families that indicated the beginnings of some level of prosperity and perhaps family ownership.
Working the fields…everywhere. 
Haystack condos? 
Backyard brick kiln 
Some newer housing for farm families
The next thing we noticed were the number of children living on the boats or near the canal. Many of them waved and smiled at the tourists chugging by, which was sweet to see. Many of them had on colorful clothes, in sharp contrast to the dull grey, green or brown clothes of their parents.
Nearly always there was only a single child being watched over by an adult. China’s one-child policy, started in 1979, was in full force and its results were readily evident.
I was surprised to see that nearly every boat included some form of living arrangement, which makes sense upon considering how slow the traffic moves, and the overall length of the canal. I doubt many of these boats traveled the full length of canal, but even going from one town to another was an all-day exercise…and then there was the matter of going back. Even a raft of logs can be a home, at least for a while.
And then there were the animals. Many boats had dogs, and a few had cats.
We were only on the canal for 3 hours or so before docking in Wuxi, but it was very memorable. Here are a few postcard views of places we didn’t actually see and meals we didn’t eat.
By lunchtime, we arrived in Wuxi, a pretty town similar to Suzhou but dominated by hills with pagodas on top. It seemed more like the China we’d anticipated.
Lunch was at a restaurant with pretty good food, but the bathroom was a one-hole squatting affair, eliciting squeals of agony from the NY girls. Barb reports that the squeals were worse than the bathroom. I waited on the street and snapped some pictures.
Next stop was a porcelain factory which proved interesting, though the guides were no good at explaining what was going on. First we watched them spin out porcelain bowls.
Next came glazing and a quick dry up and down the conveyor elevator. Health and safety conditions seemed even more lacking than usual. No OSHA in China.
Then the pieces were fired in massive wood burning ovens.
A little breakage caused a commotion
Next came appliques. Some folks sat and cut out decals all day long. Other girls pasted on the little flowery decals with blinding speed. Then came stacking, counting and quality control, such as it was.
One last firing and the bowls are done.
The same factory had a separate section that specialized in this remarkable hand-cut filigree work. We wanted to buy one but couldn’t decide in time. Barb notes that we wanted a plain one but that was impossible — they had to put blue paint on everything. The whole rest of the trip we looked for something similar but couldn’t find anything as nice. Lesson learned: if you see something you like, get it there and then. You probably won’t see it again.
After the porcelain factory, it’s back on the bus. When it’s announced we’re heading to another factory of some sort, we stage our first revolt. We vote to head to a garden instead. Wuxi is, after all, a garden city.
This turn of events pleases Barb
We go to a pretty little garden where we get to stroll around for a whole half an hour. It’s a nice spot.
Barb in pavilion 
Contemplating carp 
Which one is the postcard? 
This one! 
One garden leads to an adjacent one where we have the chance for some lotus tea. Kate and Barb give the tea a try, Barb’s not a fan. Bill wanders and takes more pictures.
After the garden insurrection, we move on to our hotel for the evening, the Hubin Hotel. This one is a bit nicer than the Soochow Hotel from the previous night, overlooking the Liyuan Gardens and Lihu Lake.
By luck of the draw, we got a room with a lakefront view. It’s pretty but you have to wonder if maybe the pagoda in my picture is really the same one in the postcard.
Postcard…maybe a little touched up?
Just before dinner, we took a walk in the Garden, but it turns out to be cold and buggy.
Dinner in the hotel was pretty good, featuring the (evidently) world famous Taihu silverfish and Wuxi pork chops. More proof that anything is good if it’s fried enough.
It being election day in the U.S., we hold our own election. Mike Dukakis won easily while George H.W. Bush and Pat Paulsen split the Republican vote. At least Dukakis won somewhere. After dinner we partied in the hotel’s disco, though we had to bring our own cassette tapes for music. Kate danced with one of the nice Peterson boys from the China Focus tour. I contemplated getting a “spedially designed weight-lossing massage” but ended up back in the room without being revitalized.
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