Walking the Forest Path, Watching Swans, and Talking About the Eight Delicacies

Taizhou Qinhu Wetland: islands within the lake, lakes within the islands! An expanded version of Three Pools Mirroring the Moon.

Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, a rough jade, after four or five hundred years of wind and rain, has become a pearl of West Lake, a delicate and elegant beauty. Qinhu Wetland is different—a rough jade that has been carved for only about twenty years, becoming a young village girl with wildflowers in her hair.

Heavy makeup or natural face—each has its own beauty!

Listening to the creak of the oars on the rowboat, we disembark and first see elk, then enter the "Peach Blossom Spring": flat and open land, neatly arranged houses, fertile fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo, and more. Smelling the fragrance of rice flowers, walking through vegetable patches, carrying water buckets on a shoulder pole, bending to push a millstone—the sense of experience and intimacy brings scenes from our past lives vividly before our eyes! This is what we enjoy when we go to the "faraway places" that others are used to!

After half an hour on the island, I thought the excitement was about to end, but unexpectedly, Director Wang said, "There's more to see later!" Our spirits lifted.

I've visited Three Pools Mirroring the Moon more than 20 times since retirement, familiar with every blade of grass. Arriving here at Qinhu Wetland for the first time, a sense of freshness hits me.

To the left of the wooden boardwalk are towering poplar trees, and to the right is "Swan Lake." Black swans frolic beside the boardwalk, seemingly showing off to the tourists. A row of white swans rests quietly on a wooden railing in the distance, as if unwilling to associate with the black swans.

Past Swan Lake, we see a large lotus pond. Two months earlier, the pond would have been fragrant with lotus, red flowers and green leaves elegant and charming. Now, no red flowers, the green leaves are starting to wither. Though the verse "Keep the withered lotus to hear the sound of rain" is beautiful, how can decay truly depict beauty?

By the lake, someone is scooping fish and shrimp with a small net. In just a few minutes, he has a good catch, but unfortunately, I failed to capture the photo! Such a scene evokes memories! In 1957, when I was 11, I moved from Zhenjiang to Caohejing in Shanghai. Now there are tall buildings everywhere, but back then the area was crisscrossed with rivers. I could catch fish and shrimp with a small net. Mr. Wang lived by the Huangpu River and talks about how, as a child, he used a net to scoop eels from the river—a whole basinful at a time—and even now he gets excited enough to drool!

"Do you know the Eight Delicacies of Qinhu?" (Director Wang asks)

"I've heard of them, but I don't know the specifics."

(Director Wang lists them like counting treasures) "Duan crab, green shrimp, soft-shell turtle, silver fish, sixi, snail and shellfish, waterfowl, and Qinhu water vegetables—collectively called the Eight Delicacies of Qinhu."

"I only knew about Taihu silver fish before; I didn't know Qinhu has them too!"

"At noon, we'll have the whole-fish feast at the Shiweitian Restaurant; one dish is 'Silver Fish Scrambled Eggs.'"

"Hey! I only tasted the scrambled eggs; I didn't get any silver fish!"

"Then you can only blame your bad luck!"

"Hahaha... We all got silver fish!" (A fellow traveler, overhearing our conversation, burst out laughing.)