Written by Fufu Hira
My greeting for all who is reading this.
I have been living in Hangzhou for two years now, in my stay here I have seen a lot of fascinating and stunning places, peoples, culture and everything that can make a city lovable and beautiful, not only actually in culture but also according to wealth, Hangzhou has got a lot of rich people who are living here, as Forbes report there are 30 billionaires from Hangzhou city. When it comes to heritage and historical places Hangzhou again has places to see, starting from the beautiful view of west lake to Hangzhou cultural museum and also the great canal which is the longest in the world is located in between Hangzhou and Beijing. Its easy to guess even for outsiders how great is the city that i’m living… one thing to add the great philosopher and writer Marco Polo called this city “a living paradise” or “paradise on earth” .
But there are also some tiny things this city needs to be perfectly a better city. The first one is sanitation, of course the city is very clean and neat but in some places its unexpectedly dirty and smelly as well. The dirtiness comes from a lot of peoples who have an habit of spitting and littering on the street and the smell comes from the public food sellers and the small rivers, the reason might be this rivers polluted by factories so that makes them immensely smelly. Government and sanitation institutes have to do something on it, forcing people by using law that ordered people not to spit and litter and advising corporation and factories to be more socially responsible.
Parking areas: Its hard to get a place to park a car in downtown Hangzhou. That’s also one of the difficulties who ever comes to Hangzhou would face. since a lot of people have got a car they need a place to park it, if it ain’t easy to park a car well the city isn’t yet a perfectly better or else its not yet making life easy for residents .
Kindness of people: In terms of helping foreigners. when we talk about cities we are not only talking about its building,roads,mountains,heritages and historical places, of course not!!! one of the main part of the city is its peoples. apart from the sanitation problem there is nothing bad or need to improve about them except one thing which is helping foreigners.
I admire and love people from Hangzhou who are kind and would love to help any one who is in need of help. But there are also some you might call them who have “foreigners phobia”, anything you ask instead of answering your question they would give you a face that can never forget. may be a face that you make when you see a strange animal for the first time or the funny face that you make when your room mate tells you he bought the second snake and you didn’t even know that there is one in the room. lol actually its one of culture shocks that i have got here in Hangzhou. some people don’t not just like to help. sometimes before you open your mouth and say something they will tell you that they don’t know “不知道” . what!!! you didn’t even ask them your question when they tell you that they don’t know. now the city is about to represent the G20 meeting and the government have to do something to increase the awareness of people about foreigners and their countries. hopefully they are already doing on it, but still there are some peoples.
Transportation: In terms of infrastructure Hangzhou have got many beautifully designed roads. but one thing to remember Hangzhou is a big city yet there are only a few metro(subway) lines has opened, i know that there are some in progress to be opened later but i think its too late.
Buildings: there are a lot of construction in the city which is great for the city in the long term but it reduce the beauty of the city as a time that they are building it. Its actually a good decision if the government asks or ordered construction companies even if the building is not done yet, they have to beautify it by using out side lights and stickers. it can’t be connected with the building but at least they can do it on the gate or on a place they can cover the ugliness of the undone building and changed in to a beautiful sight.
Introducing the Chinese beautiful culture: China has more than 5 thousand years of history but i can’t see that much in this city where Chinese people are introducing it for others. the city government or others who have a capability of doing this has to organize a culture exhibitions as much times as they can per year. not only by targeting foreigners but also that targets the young and next generation of china and again of course it gives more beauty for the city and make it a unique place.
Housing: The price of house is exceeding much more than the majority can earn. i don’t have any solution that i can give for this problem but i know that its excessively expensive here.
Botanical gardens: The number of gardens in Hangzhou compare to the bigness of the city the are still few parks and zoos are available. people need to recreate after their tiring work. if there are only bars and clubs near by them life would be meaningless and they don’t enjoy the test of happiness or joyful. the things that I have mentioned up there gives a human being a real satisfaction in terms of happiness. the city with the happiest peoples would be a better place to live. let the people enjoy the fruits of nature!!!
These are some of the weakness of the city that i have noticed in my stay. I might be wrong in other peoples perspectives but in my view from experience the city needs the things that i mentioned here.
i consider my self as a lucky person because i am living in this city. the city that everyone would love to live.
Thank you so much.
