By Tan Weiyun

Billed as "one of China's most beautiful cities, home of the country's silk products and setting for countless romantic novels," Hangzhou has an undoubtedly feminine flavor.

My grandmother had a qipao, which is made of red silk that shines like a ribbon. It was soft to the touch and light on the skin. It clung to every curve of her tiny frame. She wore it only for important occasions - Spring Festivals, on her wedding night and on the day she passed away.

As a little girl, I used to play dress-up in it and she would tell me to take care of it because the dress was tailor-made from the best silk in Hangzhou.

"One day I will take you there to have your own qipao made," she promised me.

By the time I'd grown into a sentimental teenager, I was weeping over sad love stories, my adolescence was spent in a sea of romantic novels.

Most of the love tragedies I read were set in Hangzhou, a city nestled in the rippling blue arms of the West Lake.

So my first impressions of Hangzhou were of a scarlet, shining qipao and bookshelves of romance loaded with too many of my childhood and adolescent memories.

When I finally got the chance to travel to the city recently, however, I found that Hangzhou was much more than merely the silk paradise or romance incubator of my vague and fragmented memories.

As one of the seven ancient capitals of China, Hangzhou was milder than the peremptory Beijing, franker than the introverted Nanjing and more cheerful than the solemn Xi'an.

She has experienced her prime and undergone hardships during the past 4,700 years.

Maybe the ups and downs she has been through have created the calm, carefree Hangzhou,that is perhaps now a little indifferent to the changes all around.

Hangzhou is a feminine city, charming, coquettish and proud.

Taking a deep breath of the air and I could smell the delicate fragrance of flowers and rough powders.

Each hill, creek, pond, pavilion, or pagoda has a historical background of some great significance; as a result, everything becomes symbolic.

Luckily, I took a free boat ride offered by the warm-hearted Qian Bingyan, a 54-year-old lake cleaner, who has been navigating the waters in his electric-powered boat clearing rubbish and leaves for more than 20 years.

I was hoping to extract some stories about Hangzhou and the lake from the old man, but in vain.

"I'm so familiar with this place that I've almost forgotten the lake is called the West Lake," he replied jokingly. "All I know is that it's beautiful. Just enjoy what you see and feel."

Yes, just enjoy what I see and leave all that history and legends behind. I got back to silence.

As Qian was driving his boat around the lake, I began to feel that I had finally achieved some proper affection with Hangzhou. The water was not that cool and the lake was not that deep.

The lakebed is soft and smooth the result of the accumulation of silt over thousands of years.

The following morning, so early that the sky was still dark and the street lamps still on, I paid a visit to the Hill of Solitude which was hidden in mist.

Though it's only 38 meters in height and covers an area of just 0.22 square kilometers, the hill is the largest natural island in the West Lake.

It was the Hill of Solitude, but in my eyes, it was by no means solitary. As home to the soaring souls of heroes, beauties, masters and monks, each patch of the hill's soil was radiant.

It was the essence, the soul of the West Lake.

I stopped at the tomb of Su Xiaoxiao, a Chinese version of the lady of the Camellias.

The beautiful courtesan and talented poet from the Southern Qi Dynasty (479-502 AD) was destined for a sad end to her rugged life because of her pursuit of freedom and love in the then feudal China.

On her death bed having been abandoned by her cowardly, unfaithful lover, the woman, bravely and calmly, pronounced: "To die in one's golden days is lucky."

Since in ancient China women were regarded as accessories to men, it is a miracle and also a tragedy that her name has been remembered and admired for centuries.

I sighed and moved on and found the tomb of Qiu Jin (1877-1907). All Chinese know the story of the Oriental Joan Arc, the country's first feminist. I always imagined her on a tall horse dashing to the battlefront with a sword in her hand.

She was a heroine, as tough as any man. But what about her feminine side? She was not a wife nor a mother, not because she didn't want to be.

Maybe her softest parts were forced to be locked away somewhere deep in her heart and mind.

Now she settles peacefully on the Hill of Solitude. Has her rebellious blood been quietened down after a century? Stood before her tomb I doubted it.

When I was wandering back along the West Lake, I saw cheerful children flying kites along the riverbank; I saw loving couples cuddling up together; I saw the sun come out.

I found that the city was quite different from my first impression the day I arrived. She is a pretty, proud woman on the one hand, but on the other, she is still a timid girl, sitting quietly in the corner hoping someone can read her mind and understand her.

(Shanghai Daily December 10, 2007)