Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "china"

I'm just back from 5 weeks in China, based in Suzhou, a small city of some 7 million people not far from Shanghai (a big city of some 30 million people).

China’s Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize for Literature. Great news, especially for this novice writer, whose Chinese name is Xiao Mo – Little Mo.

China 2012: Suzhou is no city for pedestrians. In the whole of China, there is probably no city for pedestrians.

The best and strongest piece of culture shock: not being stared at. Plenty of curious glances, but not jaw-dropped fixed staring that I experienced 20 years ago, that made you feel like an exhibit in a zoo.
And people rarely bother to tell me that I’m a foreigner. Or shout “hello” at my back once I’ve passed them.

In mid-September, the weather cools and the sky over Suzhou city occasionally turns blue, though there is always a haze of fog hovering over the horizon.
Like almost everywhere else, Suzhou looks better in the autumn sunshine.

A plaque at the entrance to an old area of Suzhou boasts of restoration without disneyfication. A shining example to us all.
The height of new buildings around Suzhou’s landmark North Pagoda is restricted, to make sure it continues to tower above its surroundings.
Old buildings there can be demolished, but new buildings must be in traditional style. This allows limited gentrification.
Q’s family block has survived because developers would have to sell to far fewer families than they had bought from

Suzhou city buses are plentiful, and plenty full. The passengers seem happy enough.
The buses have “next stop” announcements, first in Mandarin, then in Suzhounese.
Q loses 100 euros to a pickpocket, probably at a bus stop.

The day starts and ends earlier here: it’s early to bed and early to rise, though I get a special dispensation to lie in. Lunch around midday, and the evening meal rarely later than 6 p.m. Tough if you’re used to Italian ways.

With all the building work going on, the crane should be China’s national bird.

In hospitals, the nurses have to pay a lot of attention to making sure the patients don’t get bed sores. One says to a hard-working nurse: “You may not recognise our faces, but I bet you recognise our arses.”

Q notes that no longer is a specific fashion followed by everyone. Individuals are starting to cultivate their own “look”.

Used to Guizhou behaviour, I rarely feel stared at here, but Q does, and she does not like it at all. As a mixed-race couple, I feel we get gawped at just as much back home in England or Italy.

Hawking and spitting have also become rare. As have children with split trousers that facilitate street toileting, though we do encounter one pile of human shit.