Open a long sealed memory
Exhibit the life space of ancestors
Here you find the alley
Ever romped in childhood
......
After only one-hour driving, we came to this little water town: Xi Tang. With fashionable images of ShangHai still in mind, we immediately were attracted by this tranquil village. Nine water channels divide the town into eight sections of land, composing a labrinth. Most houses along the river have already been there for several hundred years.
The labyrinth has 140 bridges, a few of the more ornate ones with ramps as well as steps, from centuries when some of the women could only shuffle on feet misshapen from the practice of binding.
This is the major water channel in Xi Tang.
Xi tang smiles in the dawn. A quiet, shaded world seemingly left behind the history and time, behind all mundane worries.
A boat on the water
Old grandmas chatting along the river
Alley with historical footprints
A little girl, her grandmother and a dog
Shi Pi Alley, leading to an oldtime inn
Tranditional mask on a shop's door
The hallway and sitting-room of Li Yuan Inn, where we spent a beautiful night.
Photographed by Jennie Bai.
Copyright ©Jennie Bai. All Rights Reserved.
(This article was initially written in the summer of 2006.)
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