Judith Huang, from Singapore

When I visited the storied West Lake in Hangzhou with my best friend, I really felt like I was touching history and legend. Not only was this the supposed site of the legend of Madam White Snake, a story I had heard from my childhood, it was also such a beautiful and poetic landscape that had been described and portrayed by so many artists and writers in Chinese art and literature. But what impressed me the most was what I learned about Su Dongpo, the Song dynasty poet and statesman whose impact on Hangzhou was so great that he is still fondly remembered and celebrated there.

I had known of Su Dongpo mainly because of his poetry, but I was impressed to learn that he had been an accomplished statesman too, and that he had had the pedestrian walkway across the West Lake built (it still bears his name, Su di, or Su causeway, today) and that it survives to this day. How many public works have lasted a thousand years? Furthermore, I was very moved by the story of how the people of Hangzhou named Dongpo Pork after him because he had been awarded a large portion of meat and decided to share it with the commoners. Here was a man who married compassion with accomplishments and left a meaningful legacy behind. Although he lived over a thousand years ago, his memory was my strongest impression of Hangzhou. 

[Photo by Hu Jian]