Kunshan has much going for it in terms of a vibrant economy and easy lifestyle, but all that pales beside its signature attraction, a 10cm creature, says Brent Hannon
The wonderful little Yangtze Delta town of Kunshan sits sandwiched between two bullying neighbours, Shanghai and Suzhou, which utterly overshadow it in terms of tourism and image.
But Kunshan is like no other city in China. It has a super-progressive government that has transformed its downtown into a user-friendly version of a European village, where citizens stroll the tree-lined riverbanks, glide along canals in little boats and walk arm-in-arm enjoying the views. It has a state-of-the art new library, and is now building an ultra-modern concert hall and a magnificent aquatic centre that will have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, slides, hot tubs and other toys. And Kunshan is so clean that even Swiss people love it there.
It is also an economic powerhouse, a factory-to-the-world that boasts the biggest paper plant on earth, produces three-quarters of the world’s eyeglasses, and has a semiconductor factory the size of a small city. The government makes it very easy for migrant workers to move their families there, ensuring a permanent, year-around work force. The city has earned China’s coveted Model City status, and more than 50 city and provincial governments have sent teams to see what makes Kunshan tick.
But all those virtues, remarkable though they are, pale next to its signature attraction: a humble, homely, 10cm creature called the Shanghai Hairy Crab. See? The crab comes from Kunshan, and the glory goes to Shanghai.
Hairy crab season is huge in Kunshan. Swissôtel Kunshan, the city’s top five-star hotel, fills up with crab-lovers every weekend from mid-October until the end of December, and during those months, the highway from Shanghai is bumper-to-bumper with crab-crazed diners. Yangcheng Lake is the focal point of all the feasting: leaning on stilts over the water are hundreds of hairy-crab restaurants, all of them chock-a-block with crab-eaters every autumn night.
The Kunshan hairies hail from Yangcheng Lake, where the clear sweet water imparts a wonderful one-of-a-kind essence, what the French would call terroir. They have a velvety, buttery, unctuous texture and a sweet mild flavour and that is enhanced by a dip of ginger, vinegar and sugar, and often washed down by a glass of huang jiu (yellow rice wine). Such rare flavours don’t come cheap: a pair of crabs – male and female – start at CNY160 to CNY180 (US$23 to US$26).
So coveted are the Kunshan crabs that interlopers from Suzhou and elsewhere are happy to cheat. “They put their crabs in Yangcheng Lake for a week, then claim they are from here, but Chinese people can tell the difference,” says Swissôtel Kunshan general manager Stephen Fewell, an affable Australian, who doubles as the town’s unofficial tourism ambassador.
Business-friendly, migrant-worker friendly and visitor-friendly, ringed by water towns, and home to the finest hairy crabs on earth, Kunshan has everything going for it. But its success has attracted unwelcome attention. Shanghai has dark designs: it wants to grab Kunshan for itself, and make it part of Shanghai Municipal Government. If that were to happen, a noble experiment, and one that has worked beautifully, would come to an end.
But until then, Kunshan is open for business – and for tourism.
