Four Years of Living, Learning, Teaching, and Becoming Half-Chinese in Suzhou, China
| Home Page ABOUT THE BOOK Why a Memoir? Meaning of the Title Book Format What/Where Is Suzhou? Why Suzhou Is So Fitting for This Book Where Can I Buy The Book? SELECTED PREVIEWS Chapter 5: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Chapter 20: A Precious Belt Chapter 29: A City Shuts Down UPDATES SINCE 2006 Our Story Suzhou's Story EXTRA PHOTOS Related to the Book Suzhou 2001-2006 Suzhou Since 2006 ABOUT: The Author My Next Book My SuzhouPlus Website |
 
 UPDATES -- SUZHOU'S STORY SINCE 2006
Note: These updates are based on our six-month return visit to Suzhou from May to November, 2009.
Along with much of the rest of eastern coastal China, Suzhou since 2006 has continued to change at a breathtaking – some would say, exhausting – pace. The most obvious and easily observable changes can be seen in the physical city itself. Traveling from Shanghai to Suzhou as recently as 2005 was a one-hour trip in a serviceable but rather dated train car. By car, it was a 60-90 minute ride through small towns on a two-lane country highway populated with slow-moving trucks, tractors, and motorbikes, with pedal carts, bicycles, and pedestrians on the shoulders and occasionally in the middle, trying to cross to the other side. Now the train ride can be as little as 35-40 minutes on high-speed trains, soon to discharge on Suzhou’s north side in a shining new train station still under construction. The car ride is better still, now easily under an hour on a wide, toll-charging superhighway. Upon reaching the Suzhou city limits, the visitor encounters additional new, elevated highways that form outer (suburban) and inner (urban) rings or half-loops around the city’s northern and southern boundaries. Getting from Suzhou’s eastern side (the SIP) to its western district (the SND or Mudu) or vice versa, once a slog through the busy heart of the city on Ganjiang Road, today only requires hopping on the city’s northern or southern half-loop to semi-circle over to the opposite side. All of these new highways are elevated, offering expansive views over the flat countryside while casting dark shadows over the neighborhoods on which they encroach. Those who choose to stick to the old ways, following Ganjiang Road, will discover endless lane diversions and obstructions resulting from another major change: construction of Suzhou’s first subway line. Scheduled for completion by 2012, this line will extend east-west from the Suzhou Industrial Park straight through the center of the city to the Suzhou New District, then turn southwest to terminate in the Mudu suburb. Notably, this is only the first of four subway lines planned to crisscross the city over the coming decade, as illustrated by the city's subway plan map shown below.  Cars and electric bikes now dominate the city streets, with parking a major problem in many areas. Roads are constantly being rebuilt and widened, but the city managers can barely keep up with the rapid expansion of automobile ownership with its attendant traffic jams and parking problems. Even many the city’s famed narrow lanes are being “revitalized” in ways that sacrifice their original character and atmosphere for a clean, modern appearance. Renowned byways such as Pingjiang Street have been completely redone, lined now with cafes, coffee and tea shops, artists’ galleries, restaurants, and aesthetic lighting. New apartment buildings continue to rise everywhere, with average per-square-meter prices skyrocketing to nearly 8,000 yuan; high-end buildings can top 20,000 yuan per square meter. Jinji Lake in the SIP is now completely ringed by high-rises on the north and west, new restaurant district and more apartments on the south, and an Arts and Culture Center on the east. Slightly farther east of the Arts Center, a posh shopping complex labeled Times Square has arisen, soon to host a Toys ‘R Us to accompany the Burger King already situated there. Dushu Lake, just south of Jinji Lake, is also quickly moving from completely rural to equally overbuilt. Not to be outdone, the old city has seen the christening of the Suzhou Museum, a modern, eastern-flavored structure designed by native son I.M. Pei (who also conceived the much-heralded glass pyramids at the Louvre in Paris). Tourist boats ply the canals like so many water bugs, gas-powered multi-seaters on the large waterways and human-powered, gondola-like boats poled along the quiet, narrow canals in the garden districts by women who sing traditional songs in Suzhou dialect. As the Guan Qian shopping district prepares for a major expansion, Western retailing presence in the city has continues to expand everywhere. Wal-Mart finally made its long-expected appearance at the boundary between the city district and the SIP, joined nearby by another Carrefour outlet. Best Buy will be arriving soon as the Wal-Mart shopping complex; Burger King has already installed another restaurant there. Suzhou citizens can also dine at such recent culinary additions Subway and TGI Friday’s. Not even the revered tourist sites have been spared this wave of modernization, sometimes to culturally degrading effect. The area alongside fabled Xumen Gate hosts electric-powered kiddie-car rides, while an open area just inside Panmen Gate (the last remnant of the old city wall) offers target shooting with tennis-ball cannons. Maple Bridge (Fengqiao) has been converted into a mini-shopping plaza, with the adjacent area outside Hanshan Temple enhanced by a park offering separate homes to what are alleged to be the world’s large cast-iron bell and largest engraved stele (stone monument). To Suzhou’s credit, the old city is not being torn down willy-nilly as Beijing sadly did with so many of its hutongs. Thus, parts of the old city retain some of their original character and charm, and it is possible to spend hours walking or biking up and down these parallel lanes, feeling the Suzhou of many years ago. Yet despite this preservation, one cannot help feeling that the Suzhou of even a decade ago, a well-preserved version of earlier times, is slowly but steadily slipping away. As Ping Ping and I traveled these old lanes, we could hardly begrudge people’s wishes to enjoy a more comfortable life even as we lamented what was being lost. The pressures of modernization, new wealth, and economic opportunism are proving simply too great to withstand forever. |