Old vs new
(Bridge at the periphery of formal gardens: downtown Suzhou)
When I think of Suzhou, this is the type of view I associate with the place; it is the foremost striking thing about it, in my opinion. This is the best image I have taken thus far of the ancient city sharing a view with the industrial new development that is underway in every direction from this centre.
The bridge is as complex in its own way as the skyscrapers breeding behind it, though they are worlds away in terms of construction. I must imagine that the bridge took much time to build and was finished to a perfection set by the architect. The high rises shoot up to the sky in fast forward, quicker than I have ever seen anything grow. Like me, the buildings jar with their old counterparts and lack the elegance of what has developed over centuries.
Dramatic as it sounds, images like this one will remain burned on my mind as long as I live, simply because they are so amazingly blatant. There is no escape from the modern, though if you look hard enough, old and new are jumbled together and the city takes on a new kind of beauty that is derived from such sharp contrasts. It makes me appreciate these pockets of quiet, gentle canals and weeping willows against the giant blades of brick slashing the horizon.
