Text/photo by Peng Ran                                                                                 Clickto Listen

Changzhou is a small city located to the northwest of Shanghai, where I lived for two and a half years, but since there's an ocean of famous but small cities around Shanghai, I can never tell which is which.

So, as one of the dull people who wouldn't take risks, I googled Changzhou on the Internet before going but only to get discouraged. They say there are lots of motorcycles there and it becomes very hot in late spring. Perfect! Exhaust fumes and humidity are the two things I hate the most.

Whatsoever, the online nightmares all became true, but Changzhou still got me on the first night we met.

History on the Street

We arrived in Changzhou in the late afternoon and enjoyed a delicious dinner with our hosts. After feasting on more than ten local "specialties", which I failed to find anything special about, the hosts asked if we felt like a walk along the Grand Canal. Of course! This was quite exciting for me who'd expected to be too busy working to see the Grand Canal.

We set off from the hotel and walked south for ten minutes. Bang! We were by the Canal. A lady, surnamed Li, accompanied us and told us that there used to be a long wall along the bank of the Changzhou section of the Grand Canal in the Ming Dynasty. The city government rebuilt the wall with the original bricks several years ago and turned it into a riverside park, which is popular place for walking and dating.

So, needless to say we saw many young people making out on our walk.

The wall was no different from the other pretentious brand-new "relics" of ancient walls, but the park was pretty good with a small artificial river, a branch of the Canal, flowing silently by one side and the cool night breeze. The plants along the canal gave off a beautiful fragrance and the many small stone bridges over the canal made for ample photographic opportunities. The lighting in the park was dim but subtle, successfully creating a mood of inner peace, and a mood for love.

I like looking at large bodies of water in the dark of night: they seem more serene, more mysterious and a little bit intimidating too. The Canal was much narrower than I imagined, so I guessed that it must be "grand" for its history not its size.

That night we also went to the largest shopping area in the city, which was right by the Ancient Wall Park. It was definitely nothing special, just a clone of the "Shopping Area Prototype" that you see all over China and indeed all over the world.

Next morning, we visited the Tianning Temple, the so-called No.1 Temple in the Southeast. It was definitely not No.1 in size, as far as I know, but impressive enough for an atheist and non-temple-goer like me. What was most amazing about the temple was the Wanfo Building, or the Ten-thousand Buddha Pavilion, where there are displayed well over ten thousand small statues of Buddha. They are tributes from pilgrims, who paid a fortune to "invite" (we can't use the word "buy" when sacred belief is involved) a Buddha who, they believed, would made their wishes come true.

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