Lakeside audience
(Jinji Lake show audience, right at the water’s edge)
Here’s what we all looked like on the front row. You have to arrive pretty early for quality seats like this, and from what we could see, most other people had to stand behind. You can see the awe on the little girl’s face on the left – that’s how I felt throughout this show.
What made me love this madness even more is that it sums up this city; much of it is attempting to be western when there is no need. Suzhou is extreme in so many ways, but this seems to symbolise the new direction China is taking. Labour and power must be two of the most abundant and inexpensive commodities available here because there’s such a vast wastage of both. Every shop has workers crawling all over it, and every restaurant is lit up, all hours.
Manifest in the show’s spectacle is the ambition of China; to be the best, to astound, to impress and to share this success with its people. We were impressed when we watched the show with everybody else, but for us it represents a readiness with which China is aching to prove herself.
