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摄于苏州高新技术开发区，2007年4月
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When you mention Suzhou in China, the first word people will response you would be Garden. Yes, I did visited them. The Gardens in Suzhou was built hundreds of years ago, usually as social elites’ home. For American Gardens, the standard settings are lawn, trees, fountains, maybe sculptures. In Suzhou Gardens, the standard settings are water, Taihu Stones(Strange Shaped Stone from Tai Lake hundreds miles away), alleys with seats, bamboo, walls with windows. Especially those hollow walls created a lot of spaces in limited land. Among all the Gardens, Zhuozheng Yuan is most delicate one, it may also be one of the biggest, but the fame really comes from the details of the architecture design. Many details of the building are small sculputures where flat surface could work well.
The place is most worthy of the money is the Suzhou Museum which was designed by the famous architect Ieoh Ming Pei who also designed Lincoln Library. When he was little, he lived just across the current position of the Suzhou Museum. Afterwards, he went to the States and became an famous architect and designed many famous buildings around the world with his design firm. This Museum is the only piece that he designed after his official retirement. It can be imagined how much effort he had put in to keep the Museum an integrate part of Suzhou city while utilizing with the most current technology. When you walk in the Museum, you feel everything is so right, the floor is smooth clean, the in door waterfall give you the perception of space, the triangle tops of the building remind you that this is still China. Yes, this is Suzhou, this is not New York or Boston, or Paris, this is Suzhou the culture capital of the Wu civilization.
Besides Guan Qian Jie, another tourism street is Si Quan Jie, Shi means ten in Ancient Chinese language, it also means "a lot". Quan means complete or comprehensive, Jie means street. The name of the street tells that this is a street with comprehensive collections of goods. Walking on this street, there are numerous stores selling stuff from snacks to hand made artifacts, there are also quite a few bars on the street. More importantly, it is built along the river, the other place with this setting would be Venice, Italy.
Suzhou is a small city will a lot of delicacies, I still missed a few places, for example Shan Tang Jie, the place where "Ga Shen Xian" actually happens every year and Liu Yuan, one of the 4 most famous Garden in China. I will keep things this way, so that Suzhou will remain a little bit mysterious for me forever.
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一个是我们住的悬崖旅馆，里面有大量扬州的漆器屏风，顶层有三件龙袍和一套用贝壳拼凑的龙的红木茶几，椅子。没有任何注释，看着斑驳的扶手，让人怀疑这些都是当年从紫禁城中流失出来的。工作人员对这些东西的背景一无所知，他们说也许是日本，也许是中国的。他们唯一可以确定的是，这些都是他们旅馆的主人，石油大亨迪克-拔丝在世界各地旅游带回来的工艺品。他们就像从农村到城里干活的农民，不再是儿子，女儿，父亲，母亲，只是民工。这些文物远渡重洋之后，离开了赖以生存的文化，也不再是中国历史的见证，只是一些精美的艺术品。
第二是摩门教堂，盐湖城是摩门的中心，有一座非常大的教堂。两位热情美丽的摩门少女给我们介绍了摩门的历史，和其他季度教的区别。更重要的是，他们完全是自愿来这里宣讲教义，分文不取。看着她们执著的宣讲对于上帝的虔诚，我很受鼓舞，我觉得科学研究也要像他们一样执著才能成功。其实，这些相信摩门教的人都是热爱家庭，爱干净，努力工作的人，他们的存在对于整个社会的作用是积极的。听同来的cxh同学介绍，教堂对面的一个mall就是摩门教会开的，那是因为上帝对他们不仅在精神上而且在物质上都格外的眷顾吧！
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Suzhou is an ancient city with a long history, even better, because it has never been the capital of China, most of the building and culture heritage were kept very well. When Nanjingers talk about Nanjing, they are often proud of the fact that Nanjing had been the capital of China for 6 times, however the downside is that every time when the new emperor came, the old culture, tradition along with the people there were likely to be eradicated to establish the new monarchy. Some traditions are uniq for suzhou, for example, there is a festival called "Ga Shenxian" which means "squeeze god" literally. It is a huge vocal arts expo, people crowded in Shantang Street at 4/14 of Lunar calendar, which was supposed to be the birthday of a god(Dongbin Lv). In fairy, at that day, the god (Dongbin Lv) was disguised as a normal person in the crowd, if you accidentally bumped into him, you will get good luck the whole year. In that day, people will jam in the street, moving slowly, watching vocal arts performance, eating traditional food and they do not mind squeezing with other people. You never known, maybe the next stranger on the street is actually the god, you shouldn’t miss the luck him/she could potentially bring to you.
Some buildings are also very special, Xuanmiao Guan is a signature building complex at downtown Suzhou. Xuanmiao means holy, fantasy and mysterious, Guan means Taoism Temple. Xuanmiao Guan is the largest Taoism temple in East China. For thousands of years the road Guan Qian Jie means the street before the Guan is the most prosperous street in Suzhou.is full of stores, snack bars and restaurants. Xuanmiao Guan has a few Taoism statues kept very well straight from Song dynasty about 1000 years ago. Even today, people come to Xuanmiao Guan to bless themselves, relatives and friends. The main building of Xuanmiao Guan is San Qing Dian, San means three, Qing means holy spirit, Dian means temple building. It houses the three holist Taoism god there. In other building, other gods are served, for example Caishen Dian houses the god of money, Cai means fortunate money, Shen means god, Caishen altogether means the god of money, Dian means temple. To knee down before him could bring you lucks for money. Although most people right now believe Taoism is just superstitions, it doesn’t prevent them from blessing there.
Another famous religion related location is Hanshan Si, Han means cold, Shan means hill, Si means temple. Hanshan Si could be translated into Cold Hill Temple. It is not big but really famous because of a well known poem "Sleeping on Boat at Feng Bridge" mentioned this temple in its rhyme. The poet Ji Zhang of Tang Dynasty conveyed a vivid and quiet scene which is still present today. When I got there, it is already quite late because I didn’t took a cab. I just want to see the scenes along the way to Hanshan Si. The river besides Hanshan Si is Jing-Hang manual river, which was digged hundreds of years ago to connect Beijing and Hangzhou. The guests arrived in the poem are actually those taking the transportation boat in between Beijing and Hangzhou. You never know it, until you are there.
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以前南京街上有很多人看自行车，从最早的1分钱，涨到现在的2毛钱。随着私家车的流行，很多小街小巷都把街道的一侧用来停车，同时派人24/7看守车辆，每个月大概100元，这种工作在人力昂贵的美国是看不到的。
*足底按摩
满大街每隔几步就是足浴，足底按摩，很奇怪，一夜之间似乎大家的脚都需要别人帮助才能活动了。我总是步行或者骑车，想来没有什么必要进一步活动脚踝，终于没有去探个究竟。
* 活人修墓
去给爷爷奶奶上坟，墓地上有很多别人家的坟，奇怪的是，有人的名字是黑色的，有人的名字是红色的。爸爸说，现在墓地就像房子一样，价格在不停的涨，早点买了也是一笔投资，那些名字刷成红色的就是活人为将来准备的。我们看到有些墓碑上有夫妻俩的名字，一个是红色，一个是黑色，但是也有的墓碑上两个名字都是红色的。
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