Gardens, Temples and Gussied Up Girls

Tuesday was Qingming Festival, which is also called Tomb Sweeping Day in China. It's a national holiday to honor the dead when relatives visit the graves of their ancestors with food, flowers and, traditionally, brooms. The April 5 holiday fell on Tuesday, so to justify a three-day weekend, everyone worked on Saturday and then took Monday and Tuesday off.

With three other teachers, Kym, Evan and Jade, I headed for Suzhou, a charming enclave of only 2 million (!)  southwest of Shanghai. The bullet train was sleek and – most importantly – warm,  whisking us there at speeds of 350 km/hour. The ride went too quickly; I barely got to crack my Peter Hessler book. At the station we were met by an epic taxi line worthy of a sci fi movie. Think Disney World on steroids. Or an ant hill. Somehow through a crazy bout of charades with a local policeman we sorted out a bus to take us to our hotel, the Mingtown Hostel on a canal in the historic Pingjian district. Very sweet. Until we were told they had canceled our reservation and given our beds away. As we were about to despair, some kindly Koreans asked if we wanted their rooms, because they needed to switch hotels. Huh? Another blur of confusion and then we made an exchange that kept us off the streets. Ah, China.

Mingtown Youth Hostel

Suzhou Canal

Suzhou is dubbed the Venice of Asia thanks to its pretty canals and stone bridges. About 200 remain of the 6000 that greeted Marco Polo in the 13th century. Spring was in the air, cherry trees and other blossoms popping in the gorgeous Humble Administrator's Garden, one of four top tier classical gardens in the country. Loved the very literal names of spaces within the garden:  the Looking at the Moon Pavilion, the Hall of Distant Fragrances, the With Whom Will I Sit? Pavilion, etc. Unfortunately the crowds soon had us yearning for the Get Me Out of Here Now exit.

Shuang Ta

The rare double pagodas of Shuang Ta (Song Dynasty) were especially exotic and evoked India, where they are more commonly seen.

And the Beisi Ta offered some superb Buddhas.

Beisi Ta 

FORGET THE ANCESTORS!  Many of Suzhou's young beauties seemed to have skipped the tomb sweeping and were out in force, all done up for model-like portraiture with their grooms, fiances and, in one case, Winnie the Pooh. The Chinese love these fantasy photo shoots, spending days at a time on the hair, makeup and elaborate wardrobes. Costs run from $450 to $15,000.

The production process is lavish, with multiple

 clothing changes and photographers, assistants, hair and make-up artists hovering.

With giant mirrors shining in their faces to reflect light

 and crowds of tourists looking on, note the relaxed and natural poses of the bridal couples.

Photography studios pass out leaflets to young women asking, "Do you want to look like the cover of Vogue?" The images from these sessions are blown up into posters, emblazoned on mugs and made into screen savers.

No man? No problem. Winnie will do.