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地平线 Horizons Of Wuxi

How often can a difficult thought make a beautiful rhyme? I was right on Wuxi's tentative and wobbly place branding; and on the comparison with Manchester or - even better - Bolton. But I confused the Tiannang Temple - an hour away in the next Prefecture - with Xihui park, within the town's borders and rus in urbe: which is equivalent to thinking Walton Hall is Trinity College Chapel... But my point I think stands; and a deeper 'Orientalism' point is made at the end...

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Martin Francis Moverley Smith
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134 views20 pages

地平线 Horizons Of Wuxi

How often can a difficult thought make a beautiful rhyme? I was right on Wuxi's tentative and wobbly place branding; and on the comparison with Manchester or - even better - Bolton. But I confused the Tiannang Temple - an hour away in the next Prefecture - with Xihui park, within the town's borders and rus in urbe: which is equivalent to thinking Walton Hall is Trinity College Chapel... But my point I think stands; and a deeper 'Orientalism' point is made at the end...

Uploaded by

Martin Francis Moverley Smith
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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1

Horizons Of Wuxi
The brochure picture does not show
the Tiannang Temple and Pagoda as I
first imagined, but the relatively new
Xihu Park (1958).

So we have a place which is both of


Wuxi and in Wuxi

even though it is a thirty-minute drive


from Wuxi.
In my earlier talk, I suggested that
scenic Wuxi was not completely
suitable as a place branding for Wuxi;
and that if Wuxi has a heart and the

Ascott Hotel is there, this is certainly


not the scenic part: it is the busy,
commercial part.
We read in Wikipedia of Wuxis
amazingly rich set of industries both
old and new: textiles, solar panels,
software and bicycles; and in the New
District, precision machinery, fine
chemicals, mechanical and electric
integration, bio-pharmaceuticals and
new materials.
A comparison with Bolton, England is
apposite.
Bolton is the thirty-second town in the
UK by population, with about 250,000

people (remember Wuxi is thirtieth in


China).
It is most famous for its industry,
having, in 1929, 216 cotton mills and
26 dying or bleaching works.

Here is a contemporary illustration, for


nearby Manchester.
Today, Bolton is most obviously a
blend of old and new, country and city.

You can see the Victorian Town Hall


and the distant hills in the
background, with the residential area
in between.
There is a new football stadium

which is lit up at night, another parallel


with downtown Wuxi.

The brand of Bolton has been


studied, and the results are
interesting:

One of the largest towns in


England
Very good motorway links
Near airport
Potential as international
visitor destination
Well suited for meetings and
conferences
as a nice place near country
and well-connected
Many hotel rooms (6000
people can stay a day)

Beautiful buildings: industrial


history represented;
the city made cotton
Has 'country park' with
building from an earlier
part of the town's history
within the city
Near open country: the West
Pennine Moors:
Pennines are a range of hills
and Moors is the

kind of wild country near


them, with grasslands,
mosslands and ancient woods.
International level football
stadium
Excellent commercial centre
and many cafes and
restaurants
Has restored many old
buildings
Has defined brand values as

10

Open - friendly, welcoming


and inclusive
Colourful - characterful and
interesting
Sound - decent reliable and
trustworthy
Wuxi is in the similar position of
having its more scenic
attractions a little way outside
the city centre: the lakeside
Liyuan Garden, Lake Tai, the
Lingshan Buddha, Xihui Park
(where the slightly misleading
photo in the first was taken) and
the Plum Blossom Garden.

11

But in addition, it has the Grand


Canal and the Yangtse River. This
photo from an official website
gives the flavour

And here is Wuxi by night

So, if we set that against this


beautiful and timely picture of
Xihui Park in autumn, we can

12

understand a little of the


paradox of Wuxi.

What about culture and art? Can


they help define the brand?
As it happens, Wuxi was the
birthplace for a great Chinese
artist of quite recent times, Chen
Chi, who spent most of his life in
America; and of the composer

13

and erhu player Blind Abing


Chinese name Hua Yanjun.
Here are some of Chen Chis
paintings mixing an old Chinese
technique with modernity

and here is one of his more


Chinese works

14

Of Abing, we can hear his


famous Moon Reflected in
Second Spring in various
performances on this webpage
http://chinablog.cc/2009/02/besterhu-masterpiece-ever-moonreflected-on-second-spring/
with perhaps his own
performance the most touching;
and the orchestral arrangement,
with shimmering dulcimer

15

accompaniment, the most


exciting. (The Second Spring
Under Heaven is situated in
Wuxis local Ji-Chang-Yuan royal
gardens).
*
All this analysis and the
comparison with Bolton does
not take us very much closer to
pinning down the brand identity
of Wuxi, but it does hint at its
richness.
Indeed, we are left with a picture
as vague as this masterpiece by
an earlier, mid 17th century artist
fromWuxi, YuWenshan.

16

17

Perhaps this picture of the west


part of Wuxi from Mount
Qingshan sums up the dilemma

In Europe, this was known as


rus in urbe countryside in the
city and is defined s follows by
Encyclopedia.com
rus in urbe an illusion of countryside created
by a building or garden within a city. The
phrase, which is Latin and means literally
country in the city, was coined originally by

18

the Spanish-born Latin epigrammatist Martial


(ad c.40 to c.104).

So shall we stick with Horizons


of Wuxi? In the end, in the
eastern way.
No definition, just a question
hanging in the air, as in these
wonderful lines from the poem,
Green Jade Table in the Lantern
Festival by Xin Qiji:
Flowers bursting into bloom in
the sky, stars falling like rain
(fireworks/meteor shower),
Whole streets filled with
perfume, jeweled horses pulling
ornate carriages, fish and

19

dragon lanterns dancing


throughout the entire night.
A body decorated with golden
thread and butterfly trinket,
laughter that has a subtle
fragrance.
Having searched for this person
until exhaustion, when suddenly
turning back by chance, I find
her standing lonely in the far
end of the street in the waning
light.
These lines, in fact gave the
name for the search engine
Baidu (meaning hundreds or
thousands of times).

20

Perhaps the better translation of


the last line is the one which
incorporates these words:
"Having searched thousands of
times in the crowd, suddenly
turning back, She is there in the
dimmest candlelight." (

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