Yangzhou, famed for its beauty and namesake fried rice dish, has a long history and a strategic position that has attracted travelers for centuries.
The late English poet Philip Larkin wrote "The Importance of Elsewhere" whilst living and working across the Irish Sea in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The sentiment of the poem is one that many will associate with. It was with this in mind that I bought my train ticket for Yangzhou in neighboring Jiangsu Province.
"Ah, yes! Yangshuo," my friends nodded sagely, thinking I was meaning that well-known backpacker paradise near Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. "It's very beautiful."
Brows then knitted when I explained that I was actually going to Yangzhou, west of Nanjing, by train over the Spring Festival.
Worse still, I was going alone and my Mandarin, as they were aware, was some way short of fluent. Confusion followed by polite laughter and the conversations invariably ground to a halt, save for the odd: "Why?"
My criteria was simple: I wanted to stay in China; I didn't want to fly; nor did I want to spend days on a train.
I wanted a genuine, modern, urban Chinese experience away from the Western conveniences of Shanghai. I did, however, require a decent hotel room with a Western convenience.
In my native Scotland, Chinese people can be found in the most remote corners and often with powers of English that, if anything, are actually worse than my current powers of Mandarin. The Chinese in Scotland, as elsewhere, sprinkle a little bit of magic wherever they are to be found. I hoped to discover how a lone Scot would fair in upcountry China.
Yangzhou is an ancient city of more than four million denizens and situated where the mighty Yangtze River is crossed by the longest and oldest canal in the world, the aptly named Grand Canal.
The city is famed for a number of things but probably none more so than its namesake fried rice.
In Scotland, Chinese takeaways can be found almost everywhere and one dish they all serve is special fried rice (basically a beefed-up variety of the Yangzhou version). This is absolutely the most sustaining and often the tastiest food available for those on a budget transcending tight.
I attribute my having somehow survived those lean years to those particular cartons of magic. It was, therefore, with some reverie that I approached my first plate of the dish in the place from whence it originated.
Having traveled so far it seemed only polite to sample such a dish at one of the city's finer restaurants, View Mansion Cuisine. It was divine, nothing more, nothing less but it had been a long day which began with that culinary faux pas that begins with an M. Everywhere else was closed, honest.
The five-hour trip west from Shanghai takes in Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Nanjing and Zhenjiang and costs about 95 yuan (US$12.28) each way. Scenic it isn't, with power stations, construction projects and a patchwork of farming plots all interspersed with ponds and canals.
Copious quantities of garbage were evident everywhere. The train, however, was clean, comfortable and on time, way different from trains back in Scotland.
The taxi into town from the train station shouldn't cost more than 20 yuan. I stayed at the Hongqiao Hotel which is on the campus of the stately Yangzhou University and right next to a canal. The hotel was perfectly adequate, clean, well positioned and at 240 yuan per night, competitively priced.
The streets of Yangzhou were broad, quiet and sky, glorious sky, is visible through the many trees. Boisterous tweety birds outdo the noticeably reduced traffic, noise-wise, legions of rickshaw riders tout for business and perform death-defying maneuvers across junctions.
There are bridges galore over the many canals and the pace of life is turned right down. Horns are thankfully much less obvious than here in Shanghai and the reason why quickly becomes apparent. Signs everywhere indicate no horns, simple and clearly effective. Perhaps that approach might catch on. The city had a dignified decent feel to it, quite different from Shanghai.
The Grand Canal, the world's longest manmade waterway, runs from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in the south. The oldest sections in Zhejiang Province date back to at least the 4th century BC. It was completed in the 13th century AD but fell into disrepair. Kublai Khan came to the rescue.
Once a crucial artery of the Middle Kingdom, today the canal is of less importance but millions of tons of goods are still transported along its course.
Having employed the services of a driver I eventually stood at the point where the canal meets the northern shores of the Yangtze.
The first boats of the New Year were setting course, joyfully celebrating their entering Yangtze waters with volleys of fireworks and crackers.
The great river itself hummed as vessels big and small pressed on up stream, full-steam ahead, most empty, and making rapid progress in the bright spring morning.
How much of China's greatness can be attributed to the way it has been blessed with workable waterways and the ingenious way that these have been employed?
At Yangzhou's port I watched as massive rounds of Filipino hardwood were off-loaded from South Korean ships and taken individually by truck to join the hectare upon hectare of premium timber lying waiting to be processed.
Yangzhou has history by the bucket loads but it was China's present and future that brought me to this country and what I wanted to see in Yangzhou.
Aside from Ronald's aberration and the ubiquitous fried chicken shop, Western restaurants were almost non-existent.
I didn't even spot the caffeine pusher that somehow wangled its way into the Forbidden City. Yangzhou people speak Yangzhouanese, their Mandarin heavily accented.
How would a Scot manage in upcountry China? Much the same as a Chinese would manage in far flung Scotland, with a little difficulty and a lot of magic.
(Shanghai Daily by Douglas Williams March 15, 2007)
