Shaoxing

Last week end, I had my first week end trip (not so bad since I've been here less than a month). I went to Shaoxing, a town which gets described in websites as a "hotbed of Chinese culture." The modern part of Shaoxing isn't massively different from Gin Tonic, though possibly it has a prettier city centre with tree-lined alleys, more stores and even messier traffic. I spent a lot of time in a mall browsing the sales. Chinese fashion doesn't become me entirely, I've noticed. I like bright colours but these are a bit excessive for me, or just look weird with my complexion. The Chinese seem also very fond of "cutesy" details, so it's virtually impossible, for instance, to find a shirt which doesn't have a frilly collar.

The main thing about Shaoxing, however, was not the mall obviously but the historical part. The complex of houses where Lu Xun was born and raised is apparently a remarkably well preserved example of Qing architecture. It's China As You Imagine It, which I was pleased as punch to have finally encountered.

I learned a lot of stuff about Lu Xun (I was just vaguely aware of his name before that). His family was well off (as you can see from this  kind of  environment) but decayed, and he had a cool grandma who taught herself to read and told him stories. i promptly downloaded Lu Xun's stories on my kindle. As with Japanese literature sometimes, the reaction is "I'm glad this writer is supposed to be Westernized, I don't want to think what a non-Westernized writer would look like!).
The one drawback of this place is that, perhaps unavoidably, it's a bit touristy. As usual, perhaps, the Real is Fake, or the other way round. The stores were pretty regular Chinatown fare. I will have to wait to get to Hangzhou or Shangai to buy some Chinese stuff (tm).