A look back at Hangzhou

West Lake has a dreamy quality that is conducive to tuning into thoughts that are below the surface and attentive reflection. It seems deceivingly calm and contained. It is easy to see how it inspired poets through the centuries with its natural beauty and its sense of agelessness. And it is so like the China I experienced that this exquisitely quiet place is in the middle of a city of 4 million (in 2003). Though it is wide open, the mists effectively reduce the city to a misty shadow in the distance.