Hangzhou is the rare Chinese city that appeals to tourists who seek its lush gardens replete with pagodas, and to city slickers looking for a little breathing space.
I live in Shanghai, where just getting to the ATM can be an exercise in street fighter-level combat, so on a handful of occasions, I have availed myself of Hangzhou's leafy boulevards and picturesque West Lake, home to folk musical Impression West Lake.
West Lake hosts one of five performances of the musical, each directed by renowned film director Zhang Yimou. Performances are also staged in Guilin, Yunnan, Hainan Island and on Wuyi Mountain in Fujian province, all with varying plots and special effects. Zhang is enormously talented. He has put on operas in Florence and New York, produced the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and directed award-winning films Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers. Still, my friend Leslie and I were sceptical about Impression West Lake; large public spectacles on the mainland can err on the side of gaudy. I was wrong and spent the hour-long show alternately on the edge of my seat and standing with my mouth agape.
The show was sold out on a warm Friday evening on which a cool breeze blew off the lake and, blissfully, there was nary a mosquito in sight. Eschewing sweet popcorn in favour of a very salty bag of peanuts, we took our seats. Some time in the split-second between when I looked at the inky water and then proffered the peanut bag to my neighbour, the trees that ring the lake lit up - lime green to purple to teal. Every camera was in the air.
The musical is like an endless dream sequence. Everything around you falls away as the dancers, who appear to be floating, flit left, right, left, all in perfect unison. Transitions are seamless, so much so that I'm shocked to find an enormous house has suddenly, silently materialised on the lake where the surface was once black and placid.
As with the incredible performances at the Beijing Olympics, Zhang chalks this precision up to the Chinese work ethic, telling Southern Weekly: 'This kind of uniformity brings beauty. Actors listen to the orders, and can do it like computers. This is the Chinese spirit. We can make our human performance reach such a level through hard and smart work.'
