This is the second article of a series on our mini-trip through the ancient waterfront towns of Eastern China, town-hopping across the marshland country between Hangzhou and Suzhou. While we chose to stay our first night in the posh and photogenic Wuzhen West, we spent a half day at the authentically charming Wuzhen East.
The contrast was stark and bittersweet for anyone with even the slightest appreciation of traditional culture and lifestyle. While Wuzhen West might be picture-perfect, it had also been reduced to not much more than a hollow community of transient inn-keepers. Wuzhen East on the other hand remained a living, breathing ancient section of town, with descendents of the original clans living and working out of their ancestral houses overhanging the narrow canal.
What exactly happened to two opposite sides of the same town over the past 20 years? It would be long story of contemporary Chinese politics, but simply ...
... Wuzhen East maintained its cluttered townscape with a harmonious compromise with its original inhabitants.
... Wuzhen West achieved a harmonious townscape with its ruthless eviction of its original inhabitants.
These are two completely opposite models of tourism development, each with its own supporters and critics. Every ancient town with the aspiration of becoming the next Wuzhen looks up to its success and chooses one of two paths: either kick out the original residents forever and refurbish the town into a gentrified resort, or work with the residents towards a symbiotic relationship benefiting both the developer and the townsfolk. Xitang went down the same road as Wuzhen East, as did Tongli. Lili however may be going the direction of Wuzhen West. By now you’ve probably noticed my preference.
No sympathetic traveler would wish to see the uprooting of peasant families, many having settled in since the medieval ages, for the convenience and comfort of modern day tourists. That’s why Wuzhen East came as such a welcomed relief for me, just to see the locals carrying on their daily routine, hand-washing clothes in the canal or shouting down the cobblestone street to the next neighbor. What should be everyday scenes in these timeless little towns ... I suddenly realized that they’re not to be taken for granted.
But the erosion of this traditional lifestyle had begun way before the arrival of mass tourism. For most of the past 1300 years or so, the town of Wuzhen had functioned as a trading hub along the local section of the Grand Canal, ancient China’s 1800 km economic lifeline stretching from Hangzhou to Beijing. Even today Wuzhen remains accessible by the Grand Canal, its entry point located at the northwestern section of town, next to the White Lotus Pagoda.
For a millennium there were no roads, only crisscrossing riverways and canals interconnecting these secluded settlements dotting the enormous marshlands that stretched from the Qiantang River to the Yangtze. Hence the saying "Boats in the South; Horses in the North" -- wheels were utterly useless in these swampy flatlands, as you simply couldn’t get around without a trusty flat-bottom boat ... and an experienced navigator.
Even in the late 1990’s Wuzhen remained cut-off from the rest of the world in terms of land traffic, and making a trip to the big cities would involve boarding the twice daily Su-Hang Ban, a motor ferry making the 12-hour run between Suzhou and Hangzhou. One can imagine growing up in such a time, when every house along the river had its private mooring and every child learned to operate a boat with the traditional sculling-oar.
But just like the rest of the Yangtze Delta, the great marshland was gradually filled in, highways were completed, and old trading towns like Wuzhen became marginalized to the outskirts of the Planned Economy. Tourism has since become the main industry, except with most of the revenue going to the developer and relatively little funneling down to the townsfolk, still proudly holed up in their beautifully crooked houses.
Two long, picturesque streets flanking the canal are all that remains of Wuzhen East, having been turned into a paid-access area under constant siege by the multi-national armies of tourists. Receiving very little subsidy from the developer in return for exploiting the beauty of their ancestral homes, the locals subsist on what locals do at any tourist destination -- selling souvenirs at the storefront and operating guesthouses at the back. Simple rooms go for around RMB 120 per night, a significant discount compared to the fixed prices at Wuzhen West.
From the dilapidating condition of the privately owned houses though, one would surmise that the townsfolk aren’t doing so well financially despite the 10,000+ visitors passing through on a daily basis. Most of the younger generation has moved on to seek opportunities in the booming metropolises of the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou triangle, and hardly any locals below the age of 50 remain.
While the transition to tourism had greatly altered the townscape and everyday life in general, it did help stave off a total extinction of the town’s traditional industries, some of which have simply become unprofitable in this age of automation and lack of socialist subsidies. Local housewives can be seen hand-stretching balls of raw silk into unimaginably thin meshes for duvet filling, while the elderly gentlemen worked in the fabric workshop down the street.
The art of indigo-dyeing is one of those traditional handicrafts barely surviving into the 21st Century, its niche cornered by machine-made imitations as well as unforgiving fashion trends. While it’s interesting to watch the old master transferring his soy-bean-and-plaster mixture out of the printing block into a motif pattern, the prices of his proud creation was probably a little expensive for most domestic tourists. With the relegation of this art form to a demonstration rather than a profitable industrial production, it’s sad to imagine the fate of his trade after the old master passes on.
Equally threatened are the trade secrets at Wuzhen’s hand-made wine distillery, the only one surviving out of the original 20 during the town’s Ming Dynasty heyday. Even though the winery has become an obligatory stop for all tour groups, thanks in part to the free wine-tasting offerings, very few visitors are actually seen purchasing the winery's claim to fame -- its deadly potent, double-distilled Sanbai liquor. I did take a sip of their version of Glutinous Rice Wine, and found the flavor a little too ... hmmm ... full of character for my liking.
While the centuries-old main street remains home to more than 300 resident families, the best-preserved houses have been converted into public museums. Stunning examples of folk art go on display at the Museum of 100 Beds, where Ming- and Qing-Dynasty beds reached the height of grandiose in terms of artistry and functionality, including built-in dressing chambers and toilet partitions.
Other notable exhibits include an impressive pawn shop, a medieval fire department, an open-air opera theater, and an apothecary all dating from the Qing Dynasty. To domestic Chinese tourists though the most famous sight is the former school and residence of literary great Mao Dun, Wuzhen's favorite son.
It wasn't until leaving when I realized Wuzhen's similarity to another beautiful antiquated town 2000 km away in another civilization: the town of Magome-juku on the ancient Nakasendo Highway in Central Japan. Both towns once thrived as intermediate stops along their respective ancient trade routes, both are well-celebrated as the birthplaces of literary greats in their respective languages, and both have been successfully preserved as the most picturesque examples of historic towns in their own countries.
If only Wuzhen could catch up in terms of its connection to neighboring historic towns, in the same way that travelers can easily travel from Magome-juku to Tsumago-juku, it would make easier a wonderfully romantic journey across the marshlands. Until then, the shared taxi remained our most reliable option to reach the next waterfront town of our mini-trip, the 1000-year-old town of Xitang.
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