Tour of the water town, Zhujiajiao

On Friday, October 17, I went on a Community Center of Shanghai tour to Zhujiajiao with my friends Sandy Foley, Sarah Smith, Jen Manna and her son Brian. 
Zhujiajiao is an ancient town located in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, although it took us nearly two hours to get there from our part of Shanghai.  Our tour consisted of the 5 of us plus 2 elderly Chinese women and three Austrian tourists.  The guide spoke excellent English and was very informative.  

Zhujiajiao may be one of the most well-known ancient water towns near Shanghai, with unique old bridges running across narrow streams, small rivers shaded by willow trees and fresh local cuisine. However, Zhujiajiao is also a tourist town - most of the old buildings in the heart of town have been turned into shops, restaurants and tea houses, all selling the same things I've seen in every other water town.
 
We started our tour at some lovely gardens of the Zhu family which originally settled the town.  We got to see a demonstration of paper cutting, which is a beautiful art form.  It's amazing to me that they make elaborate paper cutting art with no pattern or guide, just by free-form cutting.  The prices were very reasonable, so several of us bought some traditional art work.

The gardens were peaceful and, for a first for me in a water town garden tour, actually contained a garden - a vegetable garden and an area where they were growing rice.  Not much rice, though, as the guide said it's mostly a place for parents to stop and tell their children to study hard or they will end up in the rice patties.  I always love the rock formations.  Our guide said that they took the limestone rocks, put them in the water for 200 years and then sculpted them into the formations we now see.  I even found one that looked like an elephant to me.

After touring the garden, we went out on the main streets of the water town, walking along the edge of the canals, to see the shops and boats cruising on the water.    We got to see locals selling their food, vegetables, and fish, including just-caught and cleaned fillets.  I don't consider it fresh water fish, however, given how far the water is from fresh.  We couldn't even see many fish swimming in the water of the canals, as it was so dirty.  But, there was a lot of interest in the cleaning of the fish, anyway.
 
We walked through the town and made our way to a Shanghai-nese restaurant for dinner.  Once again, I had checked with the tour guides ahead of time and told they couldn't guarantee any of the food would be allergen-free, so I had to bring my own lunch.  Given the cost of these tours, I really wish they'd make lunch optional, so I wouldn't have to pay for food I'm not able to eat.  My friends were mostly uncertain of the food as well, at least to start, but decided that much of it was pretty good.  During lunch, we learned that the Austrian family we were traveling with were in Shanghai visiting family who run the Zotter Chocolate store we had just visited on our tour the previous Tuesday.  I was so surprised, as they live near Graz, Austria, where Samantha had visited the Zotter Chocolate Factory last fall during her semester abroad.
 
After lunch, we continued our tour of the town, including the famous Fangsheng Bridge. We made our way over to Shanghai's first post office, which is about 300 years old. Fortunately, Zhujiajiao was not as crowded on a Friday afternoon as water towns sometimes are, but it was still quite busy.  The pleasant surprise was that the traffic on the way back to Pudong was not nearly as heavy as we expected.

The tour was interesting and the company was fun, although I may have seen enough water towns.  While the canals and bridges are beautiful, the villages have become so tourist-oriented that they feel very similar.  Our tour guide told us that many people sell or rent out their homes in the center of these towns to stores and restaurants and become so wealthy that they buy the newly constructed homes that are popping up everywhere on the outskirts of town.  The only people actually living in much of the old town are the poor who live in the hovels that seem to always be falling down.  It's actually a little sad and the constant calls from the shop keepers to buy their wares is more than a little tiring.  But, we had a beautiful day for our tour and great company, including my friends, the Austrian tourists, and the 85-year-old Chinese woman and her friend who kept up with all the walking this tour involved.  I really enjoyed it and look forward to doing some more tours in the future with my friends, although maybe not of water towns.