Beautiful Feet: Xitang (A Water Village)

I wanted to see a water village outside of Shanghai, so I went with a tour bus 1.5 hours away to Xitang 西塘. Basically it's an old residential area that was built along canals, with many twists and turns and bridges. Many of the water villages have become so touristy that they've started to build new structures to mix with the old to make it look 'nicer', but the drawback is that you're not seeing what was actually there hundreds of years ago. I heard that Xitang had not been subjected to such drastic changes due to tourism, so I picked this location for my experience of being transported back in time.

A very helpful sign .....

Garden leading to the 'tourist area' of Xitang

There were so many people painting and drawing by the canal!

Isn't it so picturesque? It's like out of a movie scene! In fact, a scene in MI3 was filmed in Xitang.

While the appearance of the town seems 'ancient', you are made very aware that you are inside a tourist attraction. First of all, you have to pay an 'entrance fee' when you enter the town. When you look across the canal at the other side, it seems more 'real', like in the picture below. But on the side that you're walking along, there are shops after shops selling souvenirs. When I glanced in a few of the houses, I saw people using their laptops, talking on their cell phones or watching the Rockets game. Somehow the experience of being transported back in time wasn't exactly as I had expected. The good thing though is that the people still actually live in these houses. They go about their business and their means of income is opening up their town to tourists, and selling whatever it is that they think the tourists will buy. Of course, I was one of those tourists, who unexpectedly spent almost every RMB on me on artwork. I tried haggling a little here, which worked, but I still didn't have the heart to do what locals here can accomplish. I met an artist who said he had been painting 'snuff bottles' since he was 7, he's traveled all over China, painting and selling his artwork. Snuff bottles were originally used by the emperor and they are intricately painted from the inside. Which means the artist would need an extremely thin brush that can fit through the narrow neck of the bottle, and paint the inside of the glass by looking at it from the outside. I think it's pretty talented! I liked his artwork so I bought a couple of the bottles, I definitely paid too much for China standards. Man, I get suckered into things when people are friendly and chatty.