Such gardens are Suzhou's fame, legacy of a 900-year regn as a center for trade and silk weaving. Once the preserve of the rich, they now are open to anyone with the price of admission. By the 1700s, when Shanghai was still a fishing village, Suzhou had been around for nearly 20 centuries. Its golden age dawned in the 10th century with the opening of the Grand Canal linking the booming Yangtze River delta with Beijing to the north. East of town stands the Water Gate, which connects Suzhou to the southern end of the canal and filled imperial coffers with tolls on barges laden with silk, spices, tea and grain.
Barges still trundle up and down the canals, though long ago supplanted by trucks and trains.
For centuries, buyers as far away as Europe coveted the luxury fabrics produced in Suzhou by armies of sweatshop laborers. So highly did China value its monopoly on silk-spinning worms that to export one alive was a crime punished by death. At the Suzhou Silk Museum on Renmin Road, visitors can watch weavers make brocades and velvet on old-fashioned looms so complex that some must be operated by two people. In a back room, silkworms in bamboo trays dine on mulberry leaves, filling the air with a murmur of relentless munching like the patter of raindrops. At the nearby Temple of the Northern Pagod, an eight-story pagoda gives a panoramic view of the city.