Zhou Zhuang (周庄)

I visited Zhou Zhuang (周庄), a popular tourist spot near Shanghai last June.  Zhou Zhuang is known as China's First Water Town, comparable to Venice, Italy. Till today, you can still see Ming/Qing housing, canals, and bridges.

One of the local specialty is the Wan San Ti (万三蹄), a pig trotter.  The pig trotter is braised together with 12 different kinds of spices for one complete day.



One of the bones can be used as a knife to cut up the trotter. According to folklore, this was the answer to a question posed by Zhu Yuan Zhang (朱元璋) to Shen Wan San (沈万三).

And according to a local guide, Shen Wan San, the richest man at that time, was said to have named the pig trotter to his name, as simply calling it pig trotter (猪蹄) would be disrespectful to the emperor as both the surname and pig are of the same pronounciation.