My trip to China, part 3: I learn about 20th-century Chinese history

Over the past century, China has experienced some tumultuous history, and the city of Shanghai has been at the center of much of it. Yesterday, I went and visited some important sites in the history of Shanghai in order to learn more about modern Chinese history.

Before 1911, China was an empire ruled by an emperor in Beijing. The country was very weak. Its economy was terrible, most of the people got no education at all, and the country lost a lot of wars. Many people thought that the only way to make China strong again was to overthrow the empire. One such man was Sun Yat-sen.

My trip to China, part 2: I visit the gardens of Suzhou

A few days ago, I hopped on a very fast Chinese train and rode 25 minutes out of Shanghai to the city of Suzhou. Suzhou is a beautiful city that was built on a series of canals. In fact, it was the third city I have ever visited that is famous for its canals – can you name the other two? Here's a hint: both of those cities are in Europe.

Suzhou has long been a commercial center in China. In fact, it was the center of trade in east central China up until 1860. Before that time, Shanghai was just a sleepy little backwater farther down the river. After that, however, Shanghai grew rapidly in size and dwarfed nearby Suzhou.

Suzhou is most famous for its beautiful gardens. Back when China was an empire, some of the people who reached high positions in China's civil service built very nice houses for themselves. Since Suzhou gets quite hot during the summer, several of these people built elaborate gardens next to their houses so that they could relax in the shade of the cool trees. Loyal readers of this blog will remember that I visited one Chinese garden and one Japanese garden on my trip to Singapore. The gardens of Suzhou represent a very particular style of Chinese garden. One might even say that these gardens are some of the most famous in the entire world!