Richard Halverstadt: July 17, 2011: China Day 7 - Suzhou, Zhouzhuong, and silk factory

Sunday, July 17, 2011

July 17, 2011: China Day 7 - Suzhou, Zhouzhuong, and silk factory

July 17, 2011: The next item on the agenda was a tour of Suzhou and Zhouzhuong, two cities outside Shanghai known for their canals. In fact, Zhouzhuong is known as the Venice of Asia and after having visited it, I can see why it's called that.

The tour bus first took us to Suzhou, a city of 5 million people, where we visited the Lingering Garden which is 800 years old. The garden has many huge rocks that were placed decoratively in the garden. It also has a considerable bonsai collection:

Lingering Garden

Lingering Garden - woman singing Chinese opera in boat

Lingering Garden - woman playing Chinese zither

Lingering Garden

After Lingering Garden, we went to the historic wall of the city. The wall was built 1500 years ago.

Nearby was a silk factory where we took a tour. Here are some facts about the production of silk: a single cocoon can produce five eighths of a mile of silk thread (i.e. 1km). The silk worm that is used for this thread lives 61 days:

Hatching: 10 days
Eating: 25 days
Cocoon: 6 days
Moth: 10 days
Mating/Laying eggs: 10 days

Here are pictures of the stages of the silk worm and silk cloth manufacturing process:

Silk worms on mulberry leaves -- silk dung is used as medicine

Silk cocoons - single silk worm cocoons on top left, double silk worm cocoons on top right

Silk cocoons growing on branches

Sorting silk cocoons depending on size of cocoon

making thread from silk cocoons

Machines weaving silk cloth from colored silk threads

cards used to create patterns in silk cloth

finished products of silk

After the silk factory, we went to Zhouzhuong, the "Venice of Asia". This city has many canals and narrow walkways. One of the popular foods of Zhouzhuong is pig knuckles: