Nowhere in China can show the importance of influence in socioeconomics and culture of the ancient engineering marvel of the Grand Canal than the prosperous Jiangnan Region. During my Jiangnan visit in 2011, I crisscrossed the Grand Canal and its branches many times; I saw many beautiful water towns such as Wuzhen and Zhouzhuang, however for the best part of the Grand Canal itself was in Suzhou and Yangzhou areas, the two cities that embraced the canal and became trading hub as well as cultural center. While the highlight of Suzhou is the famous classical gardens, the city old town of Pingjiang District is equally interesting with beautiful Jiangnan vernacular houses, the style that quite similar with the Huizhou style of World Heritage Site of Xidi and Hongcun villages, small canals, stone ached bridges, and rows of weeping willow tree, a very classic image of charming Chinese water towns. Pingjiang is also the last vestiges of old Suzhou that still perfectly preserves its old area with few modern revival old, styled buildings, so to be listed as World Heritage Site, for me is the good act and final completion to preserve Suzhou as one of the most beautiful cities in China. Pan Men Gate is another nominated scenic area in southwest corner of old Suzhou, the main attraction here is the fine old city gate and beautiful Ruiguang Pagoda in the nice landscape garden. However, to be honest there was nothing much to see and I spent the majority of my time looking passing boats on the canal and old Chinese men playing mahjong in the park.

Yangzhou is quite similar to Hangzhou at the quick glance. The main attraction is the beautiful Slender West Lake; actually, it is not a lake but a wider canal area. Along the lake reminded me to beautiful Hangzhou's West Lake with beautiful lakeside pavilions, arched bridges, thousands of weeping willow trees, Tibetan stupa and all elements of perfect Chinese gardens landscape. The biggest contrast between West Lake and Slender West Lake is the lake shape, because of narrower channel; it is easier to appreciate all structures along the lake in both sides in the one ride. Also because of smaller water area, bridges in Slender West Lake are easier to have more elaborated design than those bridges in Hangzhou. Anyway, apart from Slender West Lake area, Yangzhou is unable to preserve large area of old styled architectures like Suzhou can. Along the Erdao River, which was one the main city waterway, is now full of modern but nice housings. I also impressed with Yangzhou's culinary heritage, Huaiyang Cuisine, one of the four celebrated cooking styles of China, the other are Cantonese, Sichuan and Shandong. The Grand Canal plays important role on Huaiyang Cuisine development as the place of mix and match of northern and southern cooking style. I have to admit that eating in Yangzhou was one of the best meals I had in China (my favorite Chinese cooking style is Cantonese in Hong Kong and Guangdong).

Although the outstanding value of the Grand Canal is unquestionable, I am a bit skeptical of site selection by Chinese authorities. It seemed to me that the Chinese compromised Suzhou and Yangzhou's political rivalry quest to be World Heritage Site by combining both Yangzhou and Suzhou extension under the single umbrella of Grand Canal. Strangely that while decided to combine Yangzhou and Suzhou; the Chinese explicitly excluded other well-known canal towns along many Grand Canal secondary branch and shortcut which currently under the tentative site called Ancient Venetian Township in the south of Yangtze River especially for the case of Wuzhen and Nanxun which are located on important shortcut canal bypassing Jiaxing to Hangzhou. I presumed that if the Chinese let both Yangzhou and Suzhou go on, both nominations will be each other problem on comparative study, and if they decided to include Wuzhen and Nanxun in the nomination, it may cause future obstacle to other sites like Lizhi and Xitang. In my opinion, Grand Canal is not only the sophisticating World Heritage Site, but also a very sophisticating in term of tactic on planning World Heritage Site nomination.