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Letter from Hangzhou...

In heaven, goes an old Chinese saying, there is paradise; on earth, there’s Hangzhou… The ancient capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and currently capital of the southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang, is an enchanting little lake-city where the laidback pace of life hasn’t been given way to the breakneck rush of a booming economy.

Life here revolves around the Xi Hu (West Lake), a serene and reposeful freshwater body that’s believed to be an incarnation of Xixi, a mythological Chinese woman of indescribable beauty; legend has it that on seeing Xixi, fish forgot to swim and drowned, and distracted condors stopped flapping their wings and plunged to their death! I witnessed no such unhappy incidents involving fish or fowl, but was touched by a curious calmness that ethereal beauty inevitably inspires.

Hangzhou is also home to a limestone hillock that, in the popular belief, flew from India to China! There are many legends that surround Feilai Feng (Peak that Flew From Afar): one of them has it that it was the famed Vulture’s Peak in Rajgir (near Bodh Gaya), where the Buddha stayed, and flew to China to help spread the Buddha’s message! Another (and more plausible) legend is that the Indian monk Hui Li who travelled to Hangzhou saw the hillock and was so struck by its topographic resemblance to the Rajgir peak that he named it thus! Whatever the explanation, Feilai Feng draws truckloads of tourists — and worshippers — from elsewhere in China and abroad.

In more recent times, however, Hangzhou has become home to other kinds of Indian “exports”. Indian software giants Infosys and TCS have software development centres in Hangzhou, which is emerging as one of China’s premier hi-tech zones. (Some years ago, Hangzhou’s Mayor even appointed Ratan Tata as an honorary economic adviser to the city.) Haveli, an Indian restaurant that opened shop to cater to Indian tastes, has proved enormously popular with local Chinese as well!

The 13th century Venetian explorer Marco Polo records in his accounts of his travels in Hangzhou that that the city was impressive for, among other things, the number of its “prostitutes”. Those who savour these women, he writes, “are so much taken up with their sweetness and charm that they can never forget them.” Not having sampled the pleasures that Marco Polo chronicled, I cannot honestly validate that statement. The nearest I came to that was when, during a nocturnal walkabout of the city, I was approached by a young man who furtively thrust a card into my hand and rushed away. Closer examination revealed it to be a calling card for massage and sexual services providers who promised sensory delights unbeknownst to man.

I did give myself over, however, to another kind of sensory pleasure. In Hangzhou, there runs a spectacular song-and-dance theatre production that’s without exaggeration one of the world’s best. “The Romance Of The Song Dynasty” showcases Chinese acrobatics and martial arts skills, packaged into a showy medley of dance forms from across the world, fusing state-of-the-art laser effects with theatre production skills. It even features an “Indian dance” by Chinese performers to the tune of Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast…