City of Heaven’s modern mystique
Dynamic Hangzhou deftly blends ambitious future with role as ancient cultural center in China
The silver water of West Lake is a skin of wrinkled aluminum foil. Lush green hills that surround the lake on three sides are partially obscured by mist, some of which makes its way to where I stand, in front of a flotilla of small, wooden boats awaiting their morning passengers. An artist, with easel and paints, blends colors from gray to green to pink.
“Watercolor,” he says with a smile, when he notices me brushing the mist off my jacket. He mimes catching the drops to add to his paint.
The former capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou counts itself among the seven ancient capitals of China. Known as the City of Heaven, it was visited in the 13th century by Marco Polo (referring to it as Kinsay in his writings), who called it “beyond dispute the finest and noblest in the world.”
Even after the peak of the city’s dynastic importance, it became wealthy as the center of a fertile rice-growing area and the site of the most important silk industries in China. It’s also been long famous as a center of culture, where mountain-fringed West Lake vistas with gardens, pagodas, pavilions and temples have inspired Chinese artists, poets and philosophers since the Tang Dynasty — long before its elevation to a capital city.
But today’s Hangzhou is far from a picture of the past. While the West Lake cultural landscape coupled with treasured tea villages and the western wetlands (preserved as Xixi National Wetland Park) carry the classic city into the present, Hangzhou is one of the most dynamic cities in China. It’s an emerging technology hub (home to e-commerce giant Alibaba), hosted the 11th G-20 summit in 2016 and will play host to the 2022 Asian Games — the third Chinese city to do so.
It’s a place that, like watercolor, expertly blends the dreamy panoramas of mist-covered hills and willow-lined West Lake banks with Tesla dealerships and bookstores laden with optical illusions.
Even a light rain doesn’t keep nature lovers from West Lake. It’s early morning, and the gentle flowing movements of lakeside tai chi practitioners are mirrored by boats slowly sweeping across the water. The bright colors of umbrellas are echoed in the flowers: camellia, hibiscus, lotus, chrysanthemum and the fragrant yellow clusters on the osmanthus trees — Hangzhou’s city flower.
The mist enveloping the nearby mountains almost makes the lake seem more intimate, as if the protective cloak brings everything closer, within reach.
The lake itself, about 10 miles in circumference, was originally a lagoon until it emerged from repeated dredging in the eighth century. As time passed, two causeways and three islands were constructed from dredged silt, and the remaining elements of the lake’s splendor — bridges, gardens, pagodas — were gradually added.
Since the Southern Song Dynasty, 10 poetically named scenic places have been identified as embodying classic landscapes. Most can be seen on foot, but Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, whose image is printed on the one-yuan banknote, is best seen by boat. My seat in a small rowboat is protected from the occasional drizzle by a canopy, and my guide, who rows with one hand (the other holds his cigarette), assures me we can see most of them during our time on the water.
The challenge is that some of the places are time-specific, and even if you’re a very organized traveler, you won’t see everything at the time of day