ROMEO AND JULIET AND LOVELY WEST LAKE

The day begins with a pleasant boat ride on West Lake, a large but not very deep man-made lake whose calm waters shimmer in the misty morning light. A number of small connecting bridges hover in the distance and two Buddhist temples seem to provide a ghostly presence on nearby hills and willow-draped islands. It is a pretty scene as our guide, Terry, relates a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story from centuries past. 

A young girl lives by the lake with her wealthy parents. She is very smart but is not allowed to attend school where education is restricted to males. One day, she cuts her hair short and dresses up as a boy to attend school. Seeing how determined and smart she is, her father allows her to continue with her plan. She spends a lot of time studying with one particular boy and she falls in love with him. Eventually, she decides to tell her friend her story. He now understands his feelings for her but since she is from a wealthy family and he from a poor family they cannot marry. They try to separate by going to either ends of the small bridge over West Lake but their love for each other is too strong and they keep returning to each other. They each cross the bridge 18 times as if to make the small bridge a long bridge; but still they return to each other. 

The boy knows he must be able to raise significant money to pay the girl’s father if he is to marry her and he succeeds in getting a loan from his friends. He approaches the father and offers the money for his daughter. The father rebuffs him and offers the boy a lot of money to go away. Theboy goes but returns to try again. This time two bodyguards of the father take him away and beat him up and he dies from his injuries unbeknown to the daughter. Meanwhile, the father has found a suitable suitor for his daughter and a wedding is arranged. On the night of her wedding she runs away to find the boy she loves only to find the grave where he is buried. She flings herself into the grave to be with him and dies there. This is a famous story of West Lake and a movie has been made of it. Not a dry eye in the house! West Lake is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And later at the Shanghai Museum I found a painting of West Lake completed around 1200 C.E.