Only 60 kilometers from Shanghai is a place where visitors feel like they're in a different century. It's a place called Zhouzhuang in east China's Jiangsu Province. The town is often compared to Venice, and lauded for its mystifying alleyways and old world buildings.

As Zhang Nini tells us in today's EXPO CULTURE profile, the area's vintage style remains intact, thanks to intensive preservation efforts begun more than 20 years ago.

By embracing its tranquil waterways and ancient architecture, Zhouzhuang offers a vicarious approach to enjoying a leisurely lifestyle.

This river is the town's heart and soul, as well as the resource that continues to sustain local households. Forty-six year old Li A'dong has spent his whole life here. Every morning, he sends his eight cormorants out to fish for him at a nearby lake. Their daily catch can range from 50 to 100 kilograms in the summer, and up to three times that amount in the winter.

Li A'Dong, fisherman, said, "When I was 17 or 18 years old, there was a chemical factory close to here, and the waters were very polluted. But in recent years I've never encountered any pesticides or pollutants in the lake. Otherwise, my birds wouldn't be able to stand it."

Success in the fishing business has netted Li enough start-up money to open his own restaurant by the river. Serving a variety of seafood and vegetable dishes, the eatery thrives on the daily flow of nearly 10-thousand visitors to the area.

Zhouzhuang is adapting to the growing environmental pressure with a number of active measures. Officials have poured 36 million yuan into laying underwater pipelines, and linking them to each household. Local architecture is being renovated and preserved, on a year to year basis, as well.

A tourist said, "It's beautiful place, I love it."

The friction between urban development and environmental protection is a delicate issue for many cities. While some areas are still striving to find balanced solutions, Zhouzhuang has put theory into practice, with its crisscrossing canals, old-world architecture, and leisurely boat rides up this charming creek.