Hangzhou, briefly...

You know I keep mentioning that phrase, about how the Chinese think that Suzhou and Hangzhou are such beautiful cities? Well, I can see what they're on about in Hangzhou. This city has a famous lake, West Lake (which, appropriately, lies to the West of the city centre. It is not just the lake, but the fact that that it is surrounded by mountains, mainly on the South and West sides, so that standing on the city side you will see beautiful scenery. From the mountains looking back you will see highrise. Lots of it - Hangzhou is a big city.

My room mate in Beijing, Miguel, went back to Spain for a week and a half but then came to Hangzhou to do research relating to his PhD. So I came and visited. It was fun hanging out with him and seeing where he was living. On one of the days one of the people working in his department (a girl who was also doing a Masters in English literature) gave us a little tour around part of the city.

The story with the young family in my previous post happened when I went exploring myself (on a Monday - Miguel had to work). I forgot to mention on little thing that is a key part of Chinese curiosity towards westerners. At one point, as I was sitting next to the mother, she held out her arm and put it near mine to draw attention to the difference. To draw attention to how pale I am. Most westerners are pale compared to most Chinese but there wouldn't be many that are paler than me. I think this skin colour difference is quite interesting to most Chinese in a country where most people look fairly similar. OK, there are various ethnic minorities but the vast majority are Han Chinese. There are differences in skin colour but that is mainly the difference between well off city girls who like to be pale and labourers and farmers darkened by the sun. People like me are an anomaly - we must look pretty strange - so it's not surprising that people want to take pictures of us...