For most Chinese, I am sure you have heard of the famous scholar Tang Bohu or in cantonese, Tong Pak Foo. A lot of movies and serials including one that starred Stephen Chow, have been made on his love story in winning the love of a beautiful maiden, Qiu Xiang. He disguised as a worker for a rich family where this maiden served as a maid, in order to get near to her.
Well, after learning some facts during the tour, this scholar does existed but the story is faked. Qiu Xiang did exist too but she and Tang Bohu have a big age gap where in other words, both never actually met. This was told by a native Suzhou tour guide while we are visiting this famous ancient scholar's mansion there. And, again, it was one of the coldest day around!!
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| A wall depicting the famous four scholars of Jiangnam - Tang Bohu, Zhu Zhishan, Wen Zhengming and Zhou Wenbing. |
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| Just behind the entrance to the mansion. The chinese word at the left is believed to be created by Tang Bohu. |
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| Walking to the mansion along a beautiful garden |
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| errr.. since I am not Chinese educated.... read it for yourselves. But I like the way they decorate these poems. |
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| A portrait of Tang Bohu - The famous Scholar who was good in calligraphy literature, paintings as well as I heard that he's romantic , probably for his paintings on beautiful women. |
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| One of a replica of his original paintings of a beautiful maiden |
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| A random shot of a section of the mansion |
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| Above and below ... Some descriptions of his life and work , I guess. |
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| More paintings here |
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| The mid-section of the mansion. The word hanging in the middle was believe to be created by Tang Bohu. |
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| A beautiful stone carving featuring poems and literature. This is really a place about Chinese literature |
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| Statues showing his scholars' friends. |
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Statue of Tang Bohu, nearby the four statues.
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Again, it was a pleasant visit to this mansion and learn a thing or two about this famous scholar, which I thought he doesn't exist or just some folklore tale. He did exist but the story told in the movies , especially the one starring Stephen Chow is totally fake.
After visiting the mansion, we were told Suzhou is famous for their hairy crab and there's a season, where it is only available during the months of October to November. Since it's early December, we still managed to get some and it cost RMB160 for the below pair. The crabs were not big as we presumed and it's even smaller than those typical crabs we had in Malaysia and Singapore. What I understand is these crabs are not meaty but rather we should try to enjoy the taste. There were a lot of roe when opened, and that was the best!
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| The crabs when served, it was steamed |
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| The meat and roe after it was opened. We really don't know how to eat it till the tour guide taught us ...lol |
