China Assignment (Suzhou) bio picture
  • Welcome to my Suzhou blog!

    For the next two years (starting on Feb 14, 2011) I will use this blog to chronicle our travels while on assignment in Suzhou, China. My wife and I (OK, mostly me) consider this a great opportunity to get to know one of the oldest and richest cultures in the world. We are excited about the opportunity and hope you will join us as we explore this amazing land and it's surroundings. We encourage you to add comments as you see best.
    Thanks for visiting!
    My assignment ended on March 8, 2013. If you like to follow our next adventure click HERE
    Carlos & Bethe

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Silk in Suzhou

Rainy Sunday, we decided to go to the #1 Silk museum in Suzhou with Angela (a very nice lady my wife met a few days ago) and her husband Richie — both from New Zealand. A foggy and raw day with intermittent rain; a perfect day for visiting anything indoors.
Suzhou is known for having the highest quality of silk in China, hence the world. The history of silk started in China about 5,000 years ago; from there it spread into Korea, Japan and later to India. Some interesting and brief facts about silk:

  1. The silk worm is one of the most genetically modified insects in the world.
  2. Without human intervention, these type of worm would not be able to recreate.
  3. The silk worm life cycle is 2 months.
  4. In their worm stage they create their cocoon which is raw silk (made from salivary gland excretion).
  5. The cocoon serves as protection while they change from a worm into a moth. If they were allowed to complete this cycle the single stand of raw silk (about a kilometer long) would be split into several sections. To avoid this, the cocoon is boiled and the worm removed in a way that preserves the single strand. This in turn allows the raw silk to be processed for use in large looms.
  6. They allow about 5% to become moths. They have an amazing system to grow the worms. They grow them on top of wicker like disks (about 4 feet in diameter. They feed them a specific type of leaf; they spent their brief life on this disk until they complete their cocoon.
  7. A raw silk strand is about 1/7th of a human hair thickness
  8. Eight raw silk strands (cocoons) are combined to make one single strand for use in the manufacture of silk cloth.

Some pictures of our visit explaining the top-level process:

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Worker sorting cocoons for defects.

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After worker sorts cocoons for defects. Good ones go into the large basket and then to the cooking stage.

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A view of the processing line after sorting. Here, the cocoons are boiled to loosen the stands and kill the work inside.

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In this view you can see several grouping of 8. The individual cocoon strands are feed up to a single bobbin or spool (see top of picture).

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A close-up showing 8 cocoons being fed up to a bobbin/spool. Note the thinness of each strand - really hard to see with the naked eye.

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Top shows the spools. Everything is spinning very quickly.

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This is a view of a loom. This operator is checking the pattern being created.

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A close-up of the programing used by the loom to create the pattern. There are more modern computerized looms in place at high volume silk factories. This one is just part of the exhibition.

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Finally the output!. Not as colorful as some of the fabrics we saw, but the process is the same. Quite an education we got today on this amazing process.

Pingjiang Street

Pingjiang street is in the heart of Suzhou’s old downtown. In it you find a vast network of canals known as the Venice of Asia, that indeed has the feel of venetian canals since it is dotted with many picturesque scenes and many small art and specialty stores. They even had small boats you can rent for canal tours. We had only time to tour a small section of the network so we will need to return, but figure we show you what we saw. This is the last installment of places we visited this past Saturday.

Found the canals and the little stores along its shores to be quite nice; this place will be great to visit in the spring. See below for more on the canals.

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A nice view from one of the entrances into the canal network. Nice looking place in the winter, like to see it in the spring.

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A view into a restaurant across the canal from where we were. The server was setting the table after a customer left seemingly happy with their meal.

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Sat next to this lady and waited until she turned my way. As soon as she did CLICK! She seemed unperturbed by me taking her picture, she looked at me briefly and without any change in her expression looked the other way. Now, some may interpret this as being mad, I did not. Quickly got up and on my way.

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The canal is not that wide as you can see, but big enough form two way small boat traffic. Some houses have their back door lead them right to their small boat. Did not see many boats, But I am told that in the spring they will come out in force.

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This trio just relaxing and passing time. Some personal garments waiving in the light breeze – probably from the neighbors.

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If it was ever in use it is no longer. Seems to be an old rickshaw type cart that had seen better days.

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This gentleman has a carving store right behind where he is. A large group of people all around him, but he was completely focused on the job at hand.

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This areas is a big draw for engagement and wedding pictures. This is one of four of the such that we saw in a brief period of time we were at the canal. Young couple having their engagement pictures done. One photographer with two assistans at had.

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This was a couple that just got married. Most have two weddings; one traditional chinese and the other with western clothing. This photographer also had two assistants; one in the green shirt (holding a off-camera flash) and the other not visible, but was in charge of posing the couple as the photographer provided direction.

Ok, so it is different

While walking around the old downtown, let the pictures tell the story.

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Saturday workout in semi-formal attire

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Fruit stand. Some familiar ones, some not so much.

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This lady had a large hot plate to make crepe like crust, then filled it with egg, vegetables and some crunchy wafer looking stuff. She then wrapped it like a burrito. Looked good.

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Fried tofu with assorted spices on top. Seemed like a very popular snack.

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We are not too sure what kind of meat this lady was cooking on skewers. Whatever it was they smelled good to me, but not to my wife. Sanitary conditions definitely not up to par with the US board of health. I think we will need to build plenty of anti bodies before we can even think of trying these.

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All we know is that this kid seemed to enjoy it!

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Street shoe cobbler selecting just the right heel for the boot.

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Correction: Not Mahjong as initially thought; these two guys are playing Chinese checkers. Very popular game - we saw quite a few groups around the area having heated matches. All surrounded by onlookers.

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Very friendly guy waving and telling us Ni-Hao (hello)!

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Those who are sick (colds and the like), if they venture out they are supposed to wear a mask to avoid contaminating others. This lady is complying, my wife is not.

 

 

 

One thing is certain…

… sunny days so far are a treat and the exception; at least on weekends. Looking at the bigger picture the weather has been good for being winter, at least with what we are used to if we were in Fort Wayne. While the US is going through a rash of winter storms spanning most of the northern areas (including california) we are in the low to mid 50’s. This past week (my first at work) was very busy so no time to do any sightseeing. So my wife ad I were looking forward to Saturday in a big way. We got up early, had breakfast and headed to the old part of downtown. We decided not to venture too far because my wife was having some cold issues.

The old part of town is quite picturesque and busy. Stores everywhere and food vendors in a few areas selling a variety of finger food; most of it looks great, but we were reluctant to try it in view of how it was being handled. Below are a few pictures of our visit to one of the main temples in this area. My wife and I took about 150 combined, we must come back in the spring if not sooner. Enjoyed the views and the people who were very friendly and fun to be around.

Will post views from the other portions we visited following this post. Thanks for visiting.

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Xuanmiao Temple (Chinese: 玄妙观) (originally built in 276 A.D.) is a prominent Taoist temple with a long history, located at the center of old Suzhou City.

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At the entrance of the Xuanmiao temple main door. Saw some people trying to toss coins into the top opening for good luck. Not many were able to do it. Many coins on the ground that no one touched.

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This is were you purchase incense to place in the large fire pits around the outside of the temple. As you can see there are specific types for whatever you are trying to get divine help for. I found it interesting that this was the only english text in the whole place; they must be making a good living from westerners. Wish we could read the many signs around the temple to put them into context for you all.

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One of the massive Buddha's in this temple. This one is about 6 feet tall and it sits right at the center of the entrance, they have altars in front of each where people leave offerings (we saw a lot of food).

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Detail of one of the many elaborate urns around the temple.

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Corner detail of the offering table in front of the main Buddha. The carvings are fantastic.

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Detail of the temple roof.

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This figure was in a smaller structure adjacent to the main temple. Again, I wish I could read the text in front of them to learn what/who they are. We may have to take an english tour, if they offer one.

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The red lantern was one of the very elaborate ones we saw in the main temple. They are very large and detailed as you can see. I would estimate the hight to be between 4 and 5 feet

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A view of the three statues that seem to represent some important persons from the area from long time ago. We saw many people bowing and shaking the clasps hands up and down offering prayers to each. In front of them is a samples of the offering tables we saw in the main temple. The offerings are placed in the red box shown in the foreground. Nothing on this one, but we saw quite a bit of food in the main temple ones.

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Detail found on a leg of a large iron incense urn.

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A look of the temple as we depart. Very nice place.

 

F o l l o w   u s