Canals That One Can't Find

Rainy morning in Hangzhou.  Everything seems moist in the kingdom of Yue.  They’ve done a nice job with this Xixi water area, I've spent the last night.  All the trees are dripping.  The map suggests green extending on for miles, but I've only driven around the parking lot and looked out the cafeteria window.  

Any “quick” ride in Hangzhou seems to take at least forty-five minutes.  I drove through a tunnel last night that felt as if it were the longest tunnel I’d ever driven through in my life.  Perhaps it was.  I go to one or another new development area every time I visit here.  And still I haven’t been to the old, historic city once.  I’ve never seemed to have gotten back to the West Lake.  There is nothing special to distinguish one new city from any other new city in the country.  The Qintang River still needs to be traversed. 

Hangzhou was one of my first trips outside Shanghai in 1993.  I don’t remember much about the city itself.  I must have seen though, as I have a very clear memory of asking someone who to get to the “city center” in my fledgling Chinese and them answering.  I walked along the West Lake and it seemed like everything was under construction.   Modest, early nineties construction, mind you.  There was a young guy with glasses there who wanted to speak English with me.  I remember being neutral about his company and his suggestions until he barked at a local peasant who had asked us something. “Ahh, I see.  I belong to you then."

I visited the Lingyin Temple, which must have made the nineteenth century missionaries thinking Satan was alive and well.  And there were, I recall, a small army of women in proletariat-blue who were picking the famous green tea in the mountains.  And in those days you could take an overnight boat up from Hangzhou to Suzhou.  I think I can still remember heading to the urban dockyard and setting out along the canals that one can’t find very easily now on the map, when I look.  One entry on the web suggested this service was halted a few years back. 

I managed to leave the city again this morning without revisiting any of that.  I may not know what’s become of the old city center.  But I certainly know where to head to pick up your high-speed train tickets.  Neither of us gets a window seat this time.  We face each other across two aisle seats and we talk about music without pause for the next five and a half hours.

Sunday, 10_15_17