Shanghai´s Garden Bridge across Suzhou Creek played a prominent role in the city’s turbulent history.
Suzhou Creek, or Soochow Creek as it used to be known, runs off the Huangpu, or Whangpoo, River at the start of the Bund where historic and imposing waterfront buildings stand. At this corner there was, and is, a garden, hence the name of the bridge over the Creek.
On a visit earlier this year the Garden Bridge had vanished. Not for any sinister reason but because it is being thoroughly restored before being put back in place in time for Shanghai´s international expo which will take place in 2010. Traffic flows busily over a modern bridge.
Suzhou Creek starts at Guajingkou, on Taihu Lake, and flows 125 kilometers, or nearly 80 miles, down to Shanghai. The part of the waterway that flows through the Shanghai municipal area is being extensively upgraded and improved with environmental considerations a high priority. Designs show gardens extending around the southern bank along the creek.
There has been a crossing over the creek ever since foreigners first arrived in Shanghai. On June 16, 1889, a survey showed that 20,968 rickshaws crossed the old Willis Bridge, as did 2,759 singe-wheeled carts, 1,633 carriages, 22 goods vehicles, 27 sedan chairs and 28 horses. The Shanghai Municipal Council completed a replacement bridge the same year. In 1909, the famous Garden Bridge replaced that.
In 1948, G.R.G. Worcester, a member of the Chinese Maritime Customs, decided to travel up to Suzhou from the Garden Bridge. Despite the modern measurement of the length of the Creek, he put it at 117 miles. He said in his book, The Junkman Smiles, published in 1959:
“Time was when travel by junk or sampan in the bewildering and intricate network of waterways of Kiangsu and Chekiang was the only means of long-distance, cross-country transport, and nobody was in a hurry. But about the turn of the century things began to change, and there came into being a service composed of small launches. Finally, a variety of dumb-lighter, carrying passengers, was added. This immediately became popular, and today there are few waterways without their boat trains, so called because the procession, with very short tow-ropes, looks more akin to the coaches of a railway train than to the lengthy water-borne tow. Everything possible is left to chance. The deck is usually unsafe and leaks. The hand-rails are liable to give way at any moment, and the whole, pantechnicon, for so it may be called, is grossly overcrowded. Nevertheless, it generally manages to retain its stability against the most fearful odds. Frequent stops en route are made, and at the end of the voyage it would probably be found that not a single passenger who embarked at the beginning of the trip was still on board at the terminus; and yet the density of the human cargo has always remained the same.
“I could have gone from Shanghai to Hangchow [Hangzhou] in four and a half hours in the afternoon express train, in a first-class compartment, with dinner in the dining-car, but I preferred to go the hard way, the way the junkmen would travel. To me the joy of moving down the creeks, with the sights and sounds of Chinese life afloat around one, is a pleasure I would not willingly forgo for any form of rapid transport. So I proceeded (this was 1948) to the Soochow Creek to join the 4.30 p.m. Shanghai-Hangchow boat train. No rigorous time-table is adhered to, but the ´trains´ do leave within one or two hours of the advertised time. This one was due to reach its destination the following night, taking thirty-six hours to cover the 117 miles.
“The departure of these ´trains´ is rich in human interest, and presents an unrivalled scene of confusion. Hawkers, coolies, loafers, thieves, beggars, and tea-boys crowd round the prospective passengers and offer free advice or highly-priced service. The traveling kitchens are everywhere to be seen. Everyone seems to be struggling with one or more pieces of unhandy luggage. But the chief interest centres in the mass of craft of all kinds with which the creek appears to be completely blocked, so that the question occurs, how did the boat train worm its way in among this congestion of junks, sampans and launches; and, having got there, how will it extricate itself? But it does.”
The picture shows an old view of the bridge, at the junction of the Suzhou Creek with the Huangpu River, with the Astor House Hotel at the left end.
***
©Phillip Bruce 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment