The ancient town of Zhouzhuang celebrates a storied past and an environment-friendly future, all in a setting that's straight out of a Chinese watercolor, Guo Anfei reports.

Zhouzhuang is one of the few places where you can experience the life of a typical Chinese water town.

Acclaimed as "Venice of the East", the town near Suzhou in Jiangsu province attracts a constant flow of visitors throughout the year with its well-preserved old houses and picturesque landscape of crisscrossing waterways.