Leadership Insights | Illustrated Lectures: A Dreamlike Ancient Town in Poetic Jiangnan

The Pingjiang Road Historical and Cultural Block is an invaluable treasure for inheriting and carrying forward fine traditional Chinese culture and promoting socialist cultural-ethical advancements. To protect, explore and utilize this historical and cultural block well, we need to make efforts both physically and mentally. 

Over its history of more than 2,500 years, the ancient city of Suzhou has given birth to seven world intangible cultural heritage items, including such as Kunqu Opera, Guqin and its music, Song brocade, silk tapestry, Chinese traditional architectural craftsmanship for timber-framed structures, Suzhou celebrations for the Dragon Boat Festival, and Biluochun tea, as well as many national, provincial and municipal intangible cultural heritage items such as Suzhou Pingtan, Taohuawu Woodblock New Year Pictures, and Suzhou embroidery. From atop the Beisi Tower, the highest point of the ancient city of Suzhou, one can see rivers and streets running side by side and small bridges spanning over flowing streams in the ancient town. The old district of Suzhou retains the most complete layout of an ancient Chinese city, and Kunqu Opera, classical gardens, and Suzhou embroidery it fostered have long become distinctive symbols for the world to understand China.

With a length of more than 1,600 meters, Pingjiang Road roughly preserves its original layout formed in the Tang (618-907) and Song dynasties. The street is home to a World Cultural Heritage site and 20 historical and cultural sites under protection at different levels, hence its nickname an “unwalled museum of Jiangnan culture”. Suzhou was once called Pingjiang. Today, the Pingjiang Road Historical and Cultural Block still retains the dual-chessboard layout of the Song Dynasty, which features “paralleled land and river transportations and neighboring rivers and streets”. 

In Pingjiang Road, you can not only walk into a poetic world comprised of small bridges and flowing rivers, but also enjoy the picturesque scenery of water towns in Jiangnan (the south region in lower reaches of the Yangtze River) featuring traditional residences with white walls and black tiled roofs as well as narrow stone-paved alleys; Swaying a Suzhou fan, you can also enjoy a performance of Suzhou Pingtan or Kunqu Opera, and visit a Suzhou embroidery shop to listen to the stories narrated by female embroiders in local dialect. Strolling down the streets and alleys in the Pingjiang block, people can sense the antique style the old neighborhood, and experience the slow-paced but colorful daily life in the Jiangnan region. 

Suzhou has completely protected the architectural forms and spatial layout of the Pingjiang Road Historical and Cultural Block, forming a cultural space in which traditional lifestyles and customs are perfectly inherited and preserved. The experience of ancient city protection has been fully applied in the revitalization and utilization of this historical and cultural block, and the Jiangnan culture has been reborn in the new appearance of the ancient city.