Sleepy Suzhou After All These Years

Apropos of nothing I was in Suzhou recently. Of course I’ve always liked Suzhou and saw it go through the massive upheavals of the 1990s and 200os – SIP, New Area, subway going in etc. It looked then like old town might go – indeed much did go including some lovely parts of the city wall and gates as well as some of the only longtang housing outside of Shanghai. Still, with construction calmed down a bit and the old town area a little less hectic in terms of population and traffic I thought it had become decidedly pleasant. Now let’s hope they just leave it alone!!

It was a rather dank day when I visited recently – not good for photography, but did make the streets rather deserted…