{"id":2229,"date":"2012-09-03T15:53:45","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T15:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/?p=2229"},"modified":"2012-09-03T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T16:11:12","slug":"the-gate-to-the-east-rises-over-suzhou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/2012\/09\/03\/the-gate-to-the-east-rises-over-suzhou\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gate to the East Rises over Suzhou"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not been in Suzhou since 1991. I remember the old canals that I had read about so often were being rebuilt and prettied up in ways that I must say were not exactly to my liking. Suzhou was changing quite rapidly at the time and I felt I could see something slipping away before my eyes.<\/p>\n

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The canals of Suzhou embody the understated wealth and erudition of this intellectual mecca. If I had to imagine an ideal hope, perhaps Suzhou of the Ming Dynasty would be it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But now an enormous “Gate to the East” \u4e1c\u65b9\u4e4b\u95e8 is rising above Suzhou that dwarfs everything else. Two towers come together as one, perhaps symbolizing a marriage of East and West, or of past and present.<\/p>\n

The changes are profound, and reminds us that increasing Chinese economic and political self-confidence has not manifested itself in a reaffirmation of traditional Chinese aesthetics, with a few notable exceptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The two columns of the Gate to the East are slowly growing towards each other over the Suzhou skyline.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not been in Suzhou since 1991. I remember the old canals that I had read about so often were being rebuilt and prettied up in ways that I must say were not exactly to my liking. Suzhou was changing quite rapidly at the time and I felt I could see something slipping away … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9296425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10659529,60672653],"tags":[1470,109828294,547725],"class_list":["post-2229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-2","category-today-in-china","tag-china","tag-gate-of-the-east","tag-suzhou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9296425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}