Suzhou, of gardens and canals

Written by Tyler Cole | 25 February 2011

 

Close to Shanghai, I made a trip out to Suzhou to see some of the renowned gardens in the city. Unfortunately nothing was really in bloom and it was gray and cloudy, so I only bothered to check out the largest garden in the city, the Humble Administrator's Garden, and wander around a bit. Pretty uneventful, but I was taken by surprise when I passed by the "Canglang Retarded School" and the "Stupid Ox restaurant". The concentration of hair salons (equally as frequented by males as females) and clothes stores seemed to be particularly high in Suzhou, as the younger generation chooses to spend their hard-earned yuan on hair styling and new clothes. Whereas even the most metrosexual males...

in the US are typically in and out of the hair salon, it seems like it is a form of self-expression in China and I would venture to say that males haircuts are more varied than female (an certainly much more femenine-looking by Western standards), and there are more male hair stylists than female. The clothes stores are not really chain stores like the US's Gap or Abercrombie, but rather individually run places that source clothes from Chinese factories, I imagine, and have goofy Latinized names like McQoon or XYLY. At some point I might get around to writing my impressions on the youth fashion here.

 

 

In any case, photos are below: