Bridge and Silk in Suzhou

As the "Venice of the East", Suzhou has a maze of bridges. Therefore, even stories of Suzhou's silk production is linked with bridges, as manifested in the following records of the silk textile workers in Suzhou of the 14th-19th centuries:

"In the east side of the city, almost all the people learned silk-weaving techniques. Weavers in Suzhou were paid by their regular employers on a daily basis... Those without regular employers stood on a bridge early in the morning, waiting for their names to be called for work. There were cotton weavers and spinners as well as silk weavers. They gathered in groups of tens or handreds and would disperse of their own accord if on a given day, no work was available. If there was not enough work, they could not feed and clothe themselves properly!"

There is a "Jiao Xie" (call or rest) tablet beside Jiao Xie bridge in Suzhou. Whether spinners could have work, and thus feed themselves, depended only on whether they were called by employers or if not, just rested. The rough tracks on the bridge might be workers footprints while waiting for calls from employers.

Suzhou, Silk weaving, Chinese bridges, silk-weaving techniques