On a Friday afternoon, Shiquan Street in downtown Suzhou was packed with people speaking Cantonese, Suzhou dialect, English, even German. They were emerging from the high-reaching plazas and offices to soak in the city's energetic nightlife that swarms with Western-style bars and oriental tea houses.

Girls speaking in gentle Suzhou dialect with mellow voices laughed on the sidewalk outside the Pulp Fiction bar; smartly dressed men wandered along the creek and quiet groups of expats wearing hats window-shopped outside silk and souvenir shops.

In-house dance music was blasting from bars and pubs with girls greeting customers at the front doors; Chinese music played on erhu and pipa emanated from tea houses. The ancient street was alive.

"Shiquan Street is a melting pot. There are Chinese and expats, bars and tea houses, good whisky from Scotland and green tea from Taihu Lake," said Tang Liangliang, manager of a Western Street bar. "You can have an exciting dance party in a bar before heading off to a tea house to relax your body.

"I love the street and its uniqueness," said Tang, who used to run a bar on Hengshan Road in Shanghai. "Compared with pub streets like Sanlitun in Beijing and Hengshan Lu in Shanghai, Shiquan Road is a better balance of Western culture and Oriental taste."

Here, history and modern lives, wines and teas live in harmony.

The 1,800-metre long street running from Canglang Pagoda to Sanyuan Fang near the downtown shopping mall boasts one elegant garden, 14 bridges and a 1,000- ears of history. Yet, its fame lies in its restaurants that serve local cuisine, tea houses and pubs and bars.

In 1992, a comprehensive reconstruction of the ancient street was completed and its ancient buildings have been preserved.

Besides the pubs and tea houses, the street is home to Suzhou's most famous souvenir shops, painting galleries, bookstores and silk shops. You can find the best silk embroidery works in Suxiu Hall and Guwuxiu Hall.

In the Ming- and Qing-Dynasty-style buildings, there are restaurants that offer fish-head soup, teahouses that feature regional culture and catering, a Japanese sushi restaurant and a Korean barbecue bar.

Along the tranquil creek, tea house lanterns and the radiant neon lights on pubs blend together. The pubs and tea houses paint their roofs grey and walls white. Within the same building, the local fish cuisine is served on the first floor and Tazuna sushi (rainbow rolls) dominates the second floor.

The Lounge Pub is located at No.856 while the Qiantang Tea Man is located nearby at No.793. Although they provide different drinks and represent different cultures and tastes, both are popular and live in harmony.

Lounge is one of the popular pubs serving good beer while Qiantang Tea Man has high-quality tea drinks. Both focus on keeping their buildings in harmonys with the ancient architecture and the street scenery.

In Lounge, you cannot miss the authentic German beer in beer glasses from Belgium. The manager of the pub said Shiquan Street was the best destination for their pub and he was glad to find that their beer was popular among both expats and locals.

Not far from Lounge, the tea house is filled with customers too. Suzhou is known for producing good tea and is a good place for tea lovers. Wang Fang, a waitress in the tea house said they were wondering if the tea house could survive in the street when it opened several years ago because of the competition from the pubs and bars, which attract mostly youngsters.

"Actually, we find the tea house is really popular," Wang said. "The pubs are not rivals but our friends. The customers like to have a cup of tea after drinking in the pubs."

Either on the sidewalks or in the pubs, Chinese and English are the prevalent languages. Shiquan Street is a good place in Suzhou for students and employees to practise English and for expats to learn Chinese.

Tang said many university students volunteered to work in his pubs just so they could practise their English with expat customers.

Zhang Dan, 29, a computer engineer, said Shiquan Street was not only a place for dining and wine. "The street has a life and has a spirit. The buildings with white walls and the creek running parallel to the street are marvellous."

For Zhang, a weekend outing with his friends in Shiquan Street is quite rewarding. It seems that pubs and bars in Shanghai are too quiet and those in Beijing are too noisy. Even though the pubs in Suzhou provide the same beverages as bars in other cities and their decorations are in the same "downtown casual" style, they adapt better to the city and become part of it.

"I find it is part of the city," said Zhang, "as I am part of it."