Balancing progress and preservation

IN the ancient Zhenjiang city, many residents enjoy watching the sun rising over the longest river in Asia, the Yangtze.

Some will walk to the river bank while others head up to the hills to have a better view of Mother Nature.

Known as the Urban Forest, this city of the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu has 235 hills and 63 rivers, and one-quarter of its land is covered by forests.

Beigu Hill, literally translated as the solid hill in the north, is the best place to enjoy the spectacular view of the Yangtze River.

The walk up the 55m hill is made easy with the staircase built and easily scaled by senior citizens.

This was where the Wu Kingdom built its empire during the Three Kingdoms (220-280 AD).

There is a list of historical buildings on the hill.

One of them is the Ganlu Temple in which its name at the entrance plaque was written by General Zhang Fei – the youngest in the famous Three Kingdoms brotherhood.

The other two in the brotherhood were Warlord Liu Bei and General Guan Yu, who is better known in Malaysia as Kwan Gong, the god with the red face whom the Taoist worship as a symbol of bravery and justice.

Behind the temple stands a multi-level pavilion, the Duojing Lou. Together with the Huanghe Lou and Yueyang Lou in Wuhan, they are named the Three Greatest Pavilions along the Yangtze River.

Not far from the pavilion lies an iron tower built in the year 825. It is one of the remaining six such towers in China.

With its long history of over 3,000 years, Zhenjiang takes pride in its large historical architecture.

The city government has been making efforts to strike a balance between preserving these ancient sites and modern development.

One successful project is the Xijin Old Port where the authorities have turned an abandoned port into a cultural-cum-commercial centre.

Located in the west of Zhenjiang downtown, the abandoned port once played a vital role in the Three Kingdoms period.

“Given its strategic location, warring military forces wanted to take control of the Xijin port, ” said a local official.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) Zhenjiang became a strategically important city for the imperial courts.

“Although it has lost its function now, its history must be well-preserved because history is very important to a city’s development, ” the official added.

With this in mind, the local government has turned the 1km street leading to the port into a cultural and commercial centre, with dozens of eateries selling local delicacies and outlets showcasing local culture relics.

A stage was set up at the centre court for cultural activities including the local opera and musical performances.

The beautiful scenery of Zhenjiang has also inspired many poets and authors to create their masterpieces.

“The flooding of Jinshan Temple”, a chapter in the famous Madame White Snake novel, and “The Marriage of Liu Bei”, a chapter in one of the four great Chinese novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms, were said to be completed here.

Zhenjiang, sitting at the intersection of Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Yangtze River, is an important port, industrial and commercial area of the Yangtze River Delta Region.

In the first half of this year, the local gross domestic product reached 221.6bil yuan (RM129.6bil), an increase of 5.9% compared to the same period last year.

Vice-director-general of Zhenjiang Commerce Bureau Huang Zhizhong said Malaysia has been one of the popular investment destinations for local companies.

As of July, these corporations have four projects in Malaysia, with a total investment of US$16.31mil (RM68.2mil) while Malaysian firms invested over US$148.75mil (RM622mil) in this city.

“The two nations have bilateral trade of US$240mil (RM1bil), ” he added.

Some 35km from Zhenjiang lies a place calls Danyang.

This is where your pair of spectacles most probably comes from.

It is the world’s largest optical lenses production base and the biggest eyeglasses distribution centre in Asia.

Danyang produced half of the world’s spectacles and lenses, and 75% of the local market.

It produces more than 100 million frames and 320 million lenses yearly for over 200 countries.

The Danyang Eyeglasses Market is a place that was specially built for spectacles business.

It occupies two malls – the local and the international sections – with more than 1,000 stores and 5,000 workers.

One of the malls also houses the National Glasses Museum of China, where the history of glasses and its development over the past centuries is showcased.

Both Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia fly from Kuala Lumpur to Nanjing city, some 80km from Zhenjiang. It takes less than 30 minutes to travel from Nanjing to Zhenjiang via the high-speed train.