Not My Kind of Paradise

Hangzhou is said to be a paradise on earth by many. Even Marco Polo was said to have refered to Hangzhou as the noblest city in the world.

Alas, I failed to see the beauty in it. Somehow, the city depresses me and I was hardly in the mood to explore the city or go for drinks in the evening after work.



I was feeling rather upbeat - as you can see from the picture above - when I arrived in Shanghai, but my mood went downhill as soon as I hit the road. Maybe the depression was sparked off by a three-hour car ride from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang with two colleagues who went on a whiny verbal marathon on how terribly long it took to clear immigration (we waited an hour just to get our passports stamped), how long the overland journey was taking, how hungry they were, blah blah blah. To make things worse, these topics were played on loop throughout the journey.

I so wanted to tear my hair out, but I am too vain to allow myself to have bald patches.

The hotel I stayed in - The Dragon Hotel - was hardly inspiring too. It might have given itself a five-star rating, but I thought it deserves a four-star at best.



I was told it invested millions on refurbishments and technology to make it a 'smart' hotel. I'm sure the owners modelled the hotel's "smartness" after the intelligence of cavemen.

The aircon worked one day, and not the next. I would go to bed with the temperature tuned to 24deg Celcius and wake up sweating in the middle of the night cos the 'smart' aircon decided to raise the room temperature to 29deg Celcius without asking for my opinion.

There was no ventilation in the bathroom and air vents also shot air over the bed and onto the windows, so poor sweaty me had to go plaster myself on the window just to get some air before I pass out.

The wardrobe was so smart, it kept its lights on even when the doors were closed just in case the clothes got scared of being in the dark.

The weather did not help a bit. It rained all day for two days in a row and it was too chilly to go anywhere. All I wanted to do at the end of each day at the trade show was to head back to my room, snuggle under the sheets and watch Discovery or NatGeo.

There was nothing much to do in Hangzhou. My colleagues and I tried to look for a nice wine bar in the city centre where most of the international five-star hotels were located, but found only noisy beer gardens and family restaurants. So we ended up going to the Hyatt Regency for wine for two nights, and the rest of the nights holed up in our own rooms.

The traffic was as bad as Shanghai and the motocyclists rode in all directions and even on designated walking streets. A colleague was unfortunate enough to be knocked over by a wayward scooter whose stubborn rider insisted pedestrians had no right of way. And that was a trait I noticed in the cyclists and motorcycle riders in Hangzhou. They would refuse to meander around pedestrians, preferring to ride into them and let the pedestrian leap out of their way instead.

The only way anyone could cross the road safely was to dash across screaming with arms flailing above one's head like a deranged person. That would probably scare errant motorcyclists and cyclists out of the way.

The weather took a turn for the better on Thursday, allowing me to catch the acclaimed Impressions of West Lake, a musical about two star-crossed lovers. It was directed and produced by Zhang Yimou with a full music score by Kitaro.



It cleverly harnessed the natural beauty of the lake and mountains as backdrop, and performers flitted across the surface of the lake as if they were qinggong masters. But of course they were not, and it was possible for them to dance on water because there were platforms built under the water's surface. :)



Impressions is one of those shows that cannot be documented in photos and must be witnessed live to understand its brilliance.

The music was so haunting, there was no need for dialogues to bring out the emotions of the two lead characters. It was so good I cried at the closing scene.

Alas, this was China and there was no stopping the Chinarians' endless chatter and laughter and grotesque sounds of phlegm being teased out from their throats. They were experts at ruining a poignant moment. It was such a shame because Impressions could evoke far greater emotions if the audience could just learn to be civilised and maintain silence.

So that's that about Hangzhou, and I am just glad to be home.