ad info




TIME Asia
TIME Asia Home
Current Issue
Magazine Archive
Asia Buzz
Travel Watch
Web Features
  Entertainment
  Photo Essays

Subscribe to TIME
Customer Services
About Us
Write to TIME Asia

TIME.com
TIME Canada
TIME Europe
TIME Pacific
TIME Digital
Asiaweek
Latest CNN News

Young China
Olympics 2000
On The Road

 ASIAWEEK.COM
 CNN.COM
  east asia
  southeast asia
  south asia
  central asia
  australasia
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 SHOWBIZ
 ASIA WEATHER
 ASIA TRAVEL


Other News
From TIME Asia

Culture on Demand: Black is Beautiful
The American Express black card is the ultimate status symbol

Asia Buzz: Should the Net Be Free?
Web heads want it all -- for nothing

JAPAN: Failed Revolution
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori clings to power as dissidents in his party finally decide not to back a no-confidence motion

Cover: Endgame?
After Florida's controversial ballot recount, Bush holds a 537-vote lead in the state, which could give him the election

TIME Digest
FORTUNE.com
FORTUNE China
MONEY.com

TIME Asia Services
Subscribe
Subscribe to TIME! Get up to 3 MONTHS FREE!

Bookmark TIME
TIME Media Kit
Recent awards

TIME Asia Asiaweek Asia Now TIME Asia story
Detour

Suzhou is a place waiting to be rediscovered. Beneath a 20th-century layer of urban blight, overindustrialization and grime is a system of canals hardly changed since Marco Polo paid a visit back in 1276. Incorporating the existing settlement of Gusu, the city, 45 km west of Shanghai, took its present form about 500 years ago under Prince He Lu, who was banished by his rivals to the swamps of the Yangtze River delta. He drained the fecund marshes and built a walled city crisscrossed by a network of canals and encircled by a huge moat. Although sections of the moat can still be found near Suzhou's elegant bridges, the waterways have been besmirched almost beyond recognition.

Until now, that is: the city recently launched an ambitious effort to turn the clock back some 700 years to when Gusu was in its prime. Architect I.M. Pei, a native of Suzhou, is heading an advisory committee to oversee the restoration. The canals were imperiled in 1990 when the massive Grand Canal, just west of Suzhou, was expanded to facilitate increased inland shipping from Beijing to Shanghai. Fighting back, the city once known as "Venice of the East" last year dredged the sludge from the canals and pumped in fresh water from nearby Lake Taihu. Suzhou's well-preserved glories include its numerous gardens. The Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets, built in 1140, is the smallest of the city's formal gardens and certainly one of the most charming. Another of Suzhou's landscaped gems is the Lion's Grove garden, the ancestral home of I.M. Pei's family. The Peis repurchased the property in the 1980s, and it has since become a major tourist attraction. Pei has long credited Suzhou as an important influence on his style, particularly the way in which locals place large rocks in rivers, to be sculpted naturally by flowing water and the hands of time.

--James Irwin

R E L A T E D
L I N K S :
Suzhou City Guide
Suzhou China









Daily

May 31, 1999

Short Cuts
The Singapore Arts Festival kicks off with Asian percussion, folk and tribal beats

Off The Shelf
The 50 authors assembled in Worst Journeys have relived their hellacious trips in writing

Web Crawling
Meet the team that recently discovered the body of George Mallory

Detour
Suzhou is a place waiting to be rediscovered

Main Feature
The travel industry's new task forces and initiatives to combat child-sex tourism


ASIANOW Travel Home | TIME Asia home

AsiaNow


   LATEST HEADLINES:

WASHINGTON
U.S. secretary of state says China should be 'tolerant'

MANILA
Philippine government denies Estrada's claim to presidency

ALLAHABAD
Faith, madness, magic mix at sacred Hindu festival

COLOMBO
Land mine explosion kills 11 Sri Lankan soldiers

TOKYO
Japan claims StarLink found in U.S. corn sample

BANGKOK
Thai party announces first coalition partner



TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


Launch CNN's Desktop Ticker and get the latest news, delivered right on your desktop!

Today on CNN
 Search

Back to the top   © 2000 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.