Summer Travels

I've just arrived at school for my second to last day of class! I can't believe how quickly time has gone by and I will miss my walks in the park. My recent favorite phenomenon is the systematic power washing of trees there and on campus. I'm not sure if there's more to this or if it just create jobs, but it sure stirs up a lot of dirt. We've been lucky to be here during a bit of a rainy season. Generally it is very hot and humid, but about once a week we get great thunder and rain storms. They bless us by cooling it down a little and dragging some of the moisture out of the air for a half day or so. It also agitates the cicadas into a lovely crescendo which I never get tired of listening to. Though they seem ever present, I still have yet to see a live one. One of our professors referred to this time of year as "Yellow Plum" season because all of the rain ripens the plums to a beautiful color and taste. She warned us this is only recognized in this small, coastal region, where the north and south winds meet the ocean breezes.

We were all able to get away this weekend for three days on a field trip to Hangzhou ("han - jo"), where the beautiful West Lake is located. This is where President Nixon met Mao Zedong in 1972 in a monumental trip which began the first bilateral discussions of friendship and cooperation between modern China and the U.S. At least President Clinton has also since visited Hangzhou since. Perhaps a Chinese retreat or Camp David of sorts.

On Friday we visited a tea farm and ate some fresh green tea.

The Chinese “eat a cup of tea” because they do not filter it and you end up eating a lot of leaves.

While that might sound bitter, the tea we tasted was head and shoulders above any green tea I had ever tasted and chewing the leaves was pleasant. Of course then they offered to sell us teas- including different levels of quality. The highest was the Emperor's Tea, the next highest (the one that we tasted) was Daughter tea. The third quality was called Daughter-in-Law and the lowest quality was called Mother-in-Law. Joe and I agreed the lower qualities were poorly named, but nonetheless we did not buy any in-law tea.

There were also a lot of temples and pagodas to be seen Saturday. And there were mountains and clear skies! We weren't sure they really existed after spending all this time where it is so flat it seems like you could see forever if it weren't for the smog.

The clear skies made way for a strong sun and incredible heat - the lows were about 35 degrees celcius (95 F) for all three days. Saturday night, about fourteen of us went out for tremendous Indian food (a buffet with a mango focus), followed by a river walk to where else but Haagen Dazs and Starbucks.

Sunday, after visiting the "elevator pagoda" (which had been rebuilt in the past several years so you did not have to walk to the top), we got back in the bus to come home. It was about a 3 hour bus ride, but the savvier Shanghainese take the hour and a half train to get to and from the city. It really did feel like a rest from the bustle, so it was ironic to discover that Hangzhou itself is home to 6 1/2 million people.

Many more pictures from our Hangzhou trip are posted in web albums.

All Albums

Individual Hangzhou albums
People and Places
Tea Farm
Leifang Pagoda
Liuhe Pagoda
Lingyin Temple

Yesterday we played tourist at the Jade Buddha Temple. Jade is a popular carving medium in China. There is a whole section dedicated to jade in the Shanghai Museum. The actual temple with its yellow walls and pagoda style eaves is encroached on all sides by modern buildings and streets.

Inside the temple is a courtyard with a shrine housing several large Buddha statues. The structure surrounding the courtyard contained several smaller Buddha figures as well as tourist shops and a vegetarian restaurant.

Despite a steady rain and flocks of tourists we saw several people take time to pray in the courtyard and inside the temple. Outside worshipers lit bundles of incense and proceeded to bow in the four directions of the compass. Inside, pads on the floor allowed the devout to kneel and pray to Buddha.

Small red globes were draped across the courtyard and underneath the awnings over walkways.

At one point I was invited up to the second floor of the gift shop where a nice Chinese man made a carefully scripted sales pitch for some incredibly beautiful (not to mention expensive) items carved from wood and jade. Though I didn’t see a price tag, one of the most spectacular pieces was a monastic scene carved out of a mahogany stump depicting at least 18 different Buddhist monks doing daily activities. Additionally there were animals, buildings, and even a dragon or two. Supposedly it took two monks three years to carve scene. Unfortunately they did not allow pictures in the gift shop.

In one of the side galleries next to a reclining Buddha was a booth selling Chinese Paper Cuts.

Not to be confused with the dreaded office war wound, Chinese paper cuts are elaborate images cut from a single piece of tissue paper. In the picture above, the red image on the left depicts the Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghai. An image like that may take one to two days to create.

Stacy and I visited the temple with several of her classmates. We finished off our tour with a meal at the vegetarian restaurant. The university cafeteria has a buffet meal three times a day for the law students, but after a while the same sweet, oil heavy, Chinese dishes start to wear on the palate. We enjoyed a wonderful meal that included herb encrusted cashews, a ramen noodle soup with imitation pork, taro (a root vegetable) with broccoli and cheese sauce, sweet and sour tofu, and a few others.

After our meal we were talked into a picture in the court yard.

You can read more about the Jade Buddha Temple on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Buddha_Temple

The Shanghai Museum is a wonderful archive of art and culture with items dating back to 6000 BC and perhaps earlier.

I found the pottery exhibit especially interesting given the many parallels with dad's work.

China potters are proud that in English we call fine porcelain china. Doing so is a recognition of the impressive abilities of ancient potters in this part of the world. The Shanghai Museum has many examples of fine porcelain, as well as other types of pottery created in the different regions of this vast country.

When I was young, dad experimented with the blending of different colored clays that when rolled together formed agate like patterns. Mom would do the same when making beads out of femo. Rolled out snakes of different colors would be combined a larger roll. The roll would then be sliced like a refrigerator cookie and applied to a pot or bead.

The Chinese used a similar method to create ceramic pots that resembled carved wood. The example below is about the size of a small sugar bowl. What appears to be wood grains are actually thin layers of brown and tan colored clays.

I always assumed celadon only referred to the light green color dad uses on some of his pots, but it applies to a range of pale greens and yellows as seen in the picture below.

Ge Ware is characterized by crazing (glaze cracking). The jinsitienxian (gold thread, iron wire) style of Ge Ware has wider black cracks and thinner yellow cracks.

The oil drop glaze is very similar to a black glaze dad refers to as Ten-moku. If I recall correctly, the key ingredient for dad’s Ten-moku glaze was obsidian. I wonder if the Chinese had a similar methodology.

One of the most difficult high fire glazes to achieve is the copper red. In China they call it Jiangdouhong, which literally means “cow-pea red”. Here are a few examples of some reds made during the Qing dynasty.

Similar reds can be found earlier during the Ming dynasty, though these have a slight pinkish hue to them.

Equally striking was this yellow glaze, also from the Ming dynasty.

Towards the end of the exhibit there was a blue platter that reminded me a lot of the dark blue glaze dad uses for many of his pots. If you look closely you can make out the intricate designs, including a ferocious dragon.

Finally there were a few unusual pieces of note. These four vases melded together are odd in shape though the blue and white glaze is typical of china porcelain.

In addition to utilitarian pieces some interesting figures. This old man smoking a pipe caught my attention.

The entire exhibit was a treasure trove following the history of pottery in china through the ages. For an album view of these and other pictures check out the link below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/towangle/ChinesePottery

We set out this afternoon to visit the Urban Planning Museum. A taxi to the metro and 15 minutes later we were trying to figure out which of the 12 different exits from People’s Square station would get us closest to the museum. Exit number two looked like the best bet, but we couldn’t figure out where it was so we took number six instead. Emerging from the air conditioned station and into daylight and humidity we did the tourist turnabout that screams “where the hell am I”, guessed a direction and started off across the plaza.

A few steps later and we were hailed down in English by a young Chinese couple sitting in the shade. Getting attention as a foreigner is nothing new. Around our apartment we get smiles and a ni hao (hello). Out and about we are often followed with blank, unapologetic stares. Near the metro stations we are often approached to buy watches or other contraband being hawked in the local markets or by street vendors – though such instances less frequent than say Cusco, Peru where one might be trailed across the Plaza de Armas by a half dozen small children imploring you to buy their post cards.

But these two seemed different. For one, their English was much better than the average street vendor who learns the few phrases needed to make a sale, but ask him what time it is and you would be out of luck. They had clearly had many years of English and learned from native speakers. As with many Chinese studying English, they had taken on English names. Yesterday it was James (after LeBron James) and Elephant (I didn’t get a chance to ask about that one). Today it was Cathy and Stephen.

Both were chatty and interested in our activities and background. They claimed to be taking a break from sight seeing but on their way to a see a traditional tea ceremony near the square. That sounded more interesting to me than the museum so I was quick to accept their invitation to join them.

Cathy took Stacy under her sun umbrella exhorting us for not having one of our own to keep Stacy's skin white and beautiful. Stephen seemed to know more about NBA basketball than me. He knew all of Houston Rocket players (Yao Ming's teammates) and how Kobe will likely be traded from the Lakers. Supposedly in China, LeBron James is called the little emperor because he is small but powerful.

Shortly we arrived at the tea ceremony...or... restaurant. Like most Chinese restaurants there were a gaggle of servers near the entrance, but few patrons. We were guided to a small room with six chairs around three sides of a table. Stacy and I sat across from the hostess serving the tea. Cathy and Stephen sat on the end and translated for us. Six different teas were lined up in front of us in small glass jars. We sampled the first four.

The first was a ginseng tea. The dry tea leaves were wonderfully fragrant. The hostess brewed a small batch, filled five tiny cups – not much taller or wider than a quarter – and proceeded to empty the cups over a small frog like statue on the tray. The first batch of every tea sample was sacrificed to the tea god for luck. Upon closer inspection the tea god was not a frog but a three legged beast – two in the front and one protruding from the back like a tail – with a coin in its mouth and two rows of coins on its back. The second round was for us. Each of us had a small wooden tray on the table in front of us. Once the tea was poured the hostess used tongs to place a cup on each of our trays.

Together the five of us savored our first cup. We were given specific instructions on how to hold the cup. Thumb and index finger grip the cup, and the middle finger supports the bottom of the cup. Women straighten their ring finger and pinky in a display of elegance. Men clinch the same fingers in a partial fist as a show of strength. The tea is first smelled, like a glass of wine and then consumed in three sips.

The ginseng tea had a smooth full flavor with a subtle sweet aftertaste that lingered beneath the sides of my tongue. We were given a second cup before moving on to tea number two.

This time the tea was served with two cups. One similar to the first round and the other a taller and narrower version. The teas was first poured into the tall cup with the shorter cup placed on top. The hostess indicated that one represented heaven and the other earth. She turned heaven and earth upside down a few times and then placed the tea in front of us with the tall cup upside down in the short cup. We were then instructed to hold the empty tall cup up to our eyes and roll it along out temple. The tea warmed cup, among other things, is supposed to help alleviate wrinkles around the eyes.

The second tea, jasmine, had a more delicate flavor than the ginseng, but was equally delightful.

The third round was served in clear cups to showcase the rich color of a fruit infused tea. I did not catch the nature of the tea leaves used, but it appeared that there were small chunks of fruit amongst the leaves. No need to add sugar to this tea – it is a treat by itself.

Finally the hostess served us green tea. I must admit, green tea has never been my favorite. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised. While there was still the subtle bitterness that is distinctive of green teas, that aspect did not linger beyond the swallow. The gentle flavor made me look forward to the second cup and gave me new faith in the merit of green teas.

Not surprisingly, the tasting ceremony ended with an offer to purchase more the teas we had sampled. Stacy and I came away with two canisters, as did Cathy and Stephen. The bill was not pretty, but the experience felt the most authentically Chinese of any of my adventures so far.

Cathy and Stephen walked us back to People’s Square. They had been to the Urban Planning Museum earlier in the day and were not interested in a return trip. We swapped email addresses and I snapped a picture. Then we went our separate ways.