HANGCHOW.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5425, 17 May 1929, Page 1

HANGCHOW.

PLOTTERS AND PILGRIMS. (By Arpad Szigetvary.) [The following article was first published in the London Tinies. Hangchow is the Chinese city which was practically burnt to the ground last week. The monastery, Emperor’s palace, etc., mentioned in the article, are now no more, the flames of the burning city having consumed these age-old historical buildings.] Hangchow is an excellent example of the blending, or rather clashing, of ancient and modern in China.

The Europeanised part of the city proclaims what can. be accomplished by ‘purely Chinese interests without the supervision of foreigners. Hangchow, being of little or no commercial importance to Europeans or Americans, has escaped being parcelled out into foreign “concessions” and has only a small white population. Unfortunately, in most Chinese cities during the last two decades lack of control by Europeans is synonymous with filth, mismanagement, and corruption. But up to the present Hangchow has been a shining example to the contrary. The modern part of the city is laid out in broad, well-metalled streets on the American “square” pattern, and is lighted by electricity from the city power station. The ' sidewalks are mostly overgrown with grass, and the electric light (called “Heavenly Light”) quite often fails, but that does not matter much ; after dark there is but little traffic outside the “Piccadilly” district, except for an occasional hard-driven carriage or slowmoving ricksha. The theatres and restaurants remain open most of the nighf, their proprietors wisely relying on the old-fashioned paraffin lamp in emergency. Commerce is now negligible, and Hangchow has become a city of pleasure, pilgrimage, and political plottings. The station is generally crammed with Chinese holiday-makers from Shanghai, with an occasional foreigner out on a shooting excursion and batches of übiquitous baggytrousered soldiers.. At one time great things were expected of Hangchow as a railway centre on the road from Shanghai to Ningpo ; but, with the failure up to the present to construct a bridge over a river filled with treacherous sandbanks, hopes have faded and Hangchow merchants still rely on the gullibility of their plea-sure-seeking compatriots. z The West Lake. Leaving the imitation European portion of the town, one comes by narrow streets to the really fascinating part—the West Lake—on whose islands once dwelt the flower of Chinese nobility, of arts and letters, whither came so long ago Marco Polo to visit the Great Emperor. The lake is shallow and irregular in shape, almost surrounded by hills, now, alas ! practically bare of trees, except in the grounds of some monastery or temple. Viewed from the aged Chih Kuo Monastery, the lake presents a scene of beauty only dulled when one thinks of its former grandeur. The surface is at most times covered with huge yellow water-lillies blending ill the clear atmosphere with the multi-coloured awnings of little tea boats which continually pass to. and fro, full, for th.: most part, with laughing ard singin'; Chinese lads and maidens, for this is modern China m an ancient setting, a fact emphasised by the “chug-chug” of a motorboat churning a silver streak across the deep blue water. On the right a many-arched and humped bridge stretches like a huge caterpillar to an island whereon is this old summer palace of the Chinese Emperors, now owned by a wealthy man, through whose generosity many of the neighbouring bridges and buildings are kept in a state of repair, A Notable Saint. But on a moonlight summer’s night one can appreciate more fully the departed glories of the scene, for the sacrilegious depredations and iniquity ies of modern hands a.rc softened and obliterated by the shadows. On one of the hottest days of the year Kuan Yin, the Chinese. Virgin Mother, loaves her seagirt island home, the holy isle or Pootu, and comes at eventide to a cool cave in the monastery hillside on her annual, vi.it ef mercy and healing. Thousands of women pilgrims come from all directions, and walking across the causeway and bridges over the lake they pay Mother a visit, and any who may be ill tell hep about it, putting their clothes aside upd showing her where the illness is, praying the while in the ineradicable belief that a cure can be effected by her merciful spirit. At night, to welcome Mother, the lake is covered with small lighted boats, and the people place lotus flowers, with tiny twinkling lights, on the water, resembling so many fireflies and will-o’-the-wisps, while the chanting of tfie monks comes sonorously across the waters, to be echoed from the moonlit hills.