City preview · HANGZHOU

The lake bed beneath Hangzhou’s Su Causeway

Mud and weeds dredged from West Lake became a path across it. At Hu Qing Yu Tang, a plaque faces the people running the pharmacy. Beyond the city, layers of grass-wrapped earth survive in a Liangzhu dam. A secondhand camera tells a more recent story: how an early Alipay order got past the question of who should pay first.

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Kuahong Bridge, Su Causeway · Editorial illustration, not a historical photo

Hangzhou and Liangzhu

Lake mud, an inward-facing plaque, a grass-wrapped dam and a camera

Four complete stories and their public sources are shown here; the rest of the collection is in the app.

01 · Kuahong Bridge, Su Causeway

A road made from lake mud

Dredging the lake left enough material for a road.

When Su Shi had West Lake dredged, workers pulled out silt and aquatic plants. They piled the material into a long embankment connecting the northern and southern shores. But an embankment across the water also needed gaps for boats, so six bridges were built. Later repairs and reinforcement produced the Su Causeway underfoot today. People follow the path; boats pass beneath its bridges.

Source: z.hangzhou.com.cn Source: westlake.hangzhou.gov.cn Source: zh.wikipedia.org

02 · Hu Qing Yu Tang Chinese Medicine Museum

The sign faces the staff

This shop sign was written for the people inside.

Among Hu Qing Yu Tang's plaques, one faces inward. Its words mean "Do not deceive." In the inscription, Hu Xueyan stresses that medicine concerns human lives and leaves even less room for dishonesty. He makes the instruction practical: buy genuine ingredients and prepare them with care. The plaque hangs facing the manager's position. The people running the pharmacy can see their own rules whenever they look up.

Source: cpc.people.com.cn Source: bowuguan.bucm.edu.cn

03 · Laohuling Archaeological Park, south gate

Wrapping mud before building a dam

The dam began with mud wrapped in grass.

Five thousand years ago, Laohuling's dam builders first wrapped mud in grass. Long bundles of earth enclosed in grasses were laid in alternating directions and stacked. Archaeologists call the material "grass-wrapped mud," and researchers have detected grass residues in the layers. In the exposed dam section, elongated boundaries still help reveal how those bundles were arranged.

Source: lzmuseum.cn Source: link.springer.com

04 · Outside Huanglong Times Square Tower B

Who pays first for the camera?

An early camera order later became a lobby exhibit.

In 2003, a used digital-camera sale stalled over payment. The seller was in Japan, the buyer in Xi'an, and neither wanted to send money or goods first. Taobao customer-service worker Liang Bin called from Hangzhou to explain escrow. A Dushi Kuaibao retrospective says he even pledged a month's salary as a guarantee. The sale went through and became a keepsake of Alipay's early history. A 2019 report placed the order on display in the lobby of Huanglong Times Square Tower B.

Source: hangzhou.zjol.com.cn Source: ep.ycwb.com

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