Shaoxing: “Chinese City is world's hacker hub” - and foreigners visit free!

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Shaoxing - II  

That weekend in Shaoxing (population 4.3 million) we did not see another white face.  Two Indian men passed by in the main street; they were the only foreigners we came across.  Shaoxing is the birthplace of Lu Xun, China's greatest modern literary figure, sometimes referred to as China's ‘Shakespeare'.  I remember that we studied a piece he wrote about returning to his hometown.  The story is full of allegory, but I find the real life inspiration for the story interesting nevertheless.  We did not make it to the various monuments to Lu Xun, such as ‘the desk where he sat in Middle School'; we might do that another time.  And perhaps not.  A Chinese friend warns me to avoid museums in China, they are ‘just Party propaganda'. 

Shaoxing is a ‘water' town.  (I wrote an ‘essay' afterwards about ‘boats and bridges' and people washing their clothes in the slightly murky water.)  There is a long straight canal that markets every known kind of plumbing supply; I have never seen so many pumps.  We buy ourselves 乌毡帽 wuzhanmao (black felt hats) proverbially worn first by the city's boatmen and made exclusively in Shaoxing; they look like something a hobbit would wear.  We walk through a dried food market, mainly mushrooms, and fish.  Fish are drying on racks everywhere you look, very large fish.  Cats are tied up outside houses and shops, but dogs roam free.  We see two hens normally kept in a little bamboo cage let out to graze beside the canal, under close surveillance of the owners.  Real estate prices on the road beside the canal range from about 180,000 to 600,000 RMB (A$30,000 to A$100,000), but some of these places could be one or two rooms and may not have a bathroom (the giveaway is the large number of public toilets).  Where ordinary workers might earn 1,000 to 1,500 RMB per month, the housing is still out of reach for most of the city's population.  Ordinary workers who you might see on the train hoisting their belongings in a large plastic sack, getting ready to head off into the city to find a place to stay. 

I feel guilty at the sight of these plastic sacks.  In Shaoxing we treat ourselves to a hotel, and it was one of those times when the effusive language in the brochure seems apt.  A collection of grand buildings of white walls and black tiles, old and new, some that had at one stage been a Daoist temple, set in an ancient garden.  On our floor there is an exhibition of blurred old photos of the city.  At the centre of the hotel complex is a small lake, with schools of gold fish; the lake connects to a canal that separates the hotel from the road.  Our room looks out to a hill, and on top of the hill is a tower shrouded in mist.  The tower, originally built as a military stronghold, has been rebuilt many times always to the same design.  The view - a scene that is 2,500 years old - from the garden to the tower on top of the hill restores the soul. 

The Shaoxing hotel hairdresser gives me my second haircut in China.  (I wrote a story in 2004 about my first haircut in China in a dirty back alley in Jingdezhen.)  I haven't had a haircut for six months.  My hairdresser has cut the hair of a lot of wealthy men, and no doubt many clever men, with those shiny Hangzhou scissors.  The brochure tells me that the Vice-President of China has stayed here, and a Nobel Prize winner.  I can't be sure that they would have had haircuts, but I imagine that they did.  When she finishes her work I think that I look passably like a Party cadre.  

Hey I am in! Actually two seats ! I suggest, for those not too interested in textile sourcing may I suggest a  Chinesepod Shaoxing gathering at Government expenses ahah.

Shaoxing - I

The railway guard is dressed in sports gear and joggers, but he has a plastic ID around his neck and he carries a whistle. Somehow we find ourselves next to him in the crowd. Where do we get on? The doors to our Car 4 are firmly closed, and we can see that the car is packed. 随便 suibian. It translates as ‘whatever (or wherever) you like'. Any door will do. Clutching our train tickets we push onto car 3 and then head left into car 4 to find our seats. At the other end people are pushing on to car 5, and heading right into the same car 4 to find their seats. All the seats are taken. I find our seats and the young woman sitting in my seat immediately gets up for me. There is nowhere to store our backpacks so I put my parcel on the table between the seats and the backpack on my lap, where it stays for the rest of the one hour trip into Hangzhou. My wife's seat is on the other side of the carriage but the seat beside me is also vacated and she falls or is pushed into it. Those without tickets who have been forced into the aisle stand together, pushing against us in the crush. For a while there is hardly breathing room but as the train moves off people gravitate to available standing space until it is as crowded as a peak hour bus, standing room only, but bearable. The light is starting to fade as we leave the station, express for Hangzhou.

I bought our return tickets the day before, just after arriving in Shaoxing. I asked the 服务员 fuwuyuan in the baggage room as we passed: ‘Where do we buy tickets?' She smiled and pointed further down the street. Already this place has a nice friendly feel, like a big country town. The big square in front of the station, like an Italian plaza, is almost deserted. Some children are playing on a statue of brass waves featuring brass fish holding brass pearls. We line up at the window that says Hangzhou and Shanghai. Two for Hangzhou, tomorrow afternoon, four or five o'clock. 5:53 pm, Ok? Ok. Or was that 5:23? No matter. That will be soft seats, she says. Hard seats I say. Hard seats? Hard seats. She is amused by this, but confirms my request clearly and then takes my money and gives me change. It's possibly the first time in China that a ticket seller has smiled at me. ‘Hard' seats are not really hard, they are the same as ‘soft' seats, upholstered and quite comfortable really. The carriages on this train are better than what we usually see in Australia, high ceilings and soft concealed lighting. But they cram more passengers in to hard seat carriages, and there is no carpet. It's the cheapest way to travel. The difference is that in soft seat carriages everyone has a seat.

I've been living in shangyu city for a whole year but got no chance to visit shaoxing once! It's just 30 KM far away from it.

I can recommend Shaoxing - It's as famous for its hats as for the wine Tvan.  I still have a Shaoxing hat - our 保安 in Hangzhou nearly fell over laughing when he saw it (Shaoxing hats are considered, how shall I say, rustic.)  The city is also famous for Lu Xun.  

Suxiaoya - I'd like to see your email, :-)  

I think I'll hold out for the "do a bit of beer and wine sourcing" conference.

Wait a minute... a bell just rang. Shaoxing is also the home of 绍兴黄酒，是吗？ So maybe a wine sourcing conference isnt' that far off.

Yeah...then again, it's not all that expensive to get there anyway!

I don't know.  There's gotta be an angle.

I was just talking about going there with a friend! If it's for real, send it my way.

Wow, nice!

I've been to Shaoxing. It's quite a nice place.