Hangzhou: A city rich in history, beauty and romance

I woke up around 6am to leave for Sunrise Tai Chi. We went to People's Square to receive lessons by a Tai Chi master. Tai Chi boxing is also known as “shadow boxing” and it is a slow, meditative form of martial art. We didn't practice any boxing, just the movements. In many of the large cities in China, people partake in communal exercises, such as Tai Chi. The people gather every morning to start their day off with Tai Chi, Chi Gong, or another form of exercise.
        Tai Chi is very slow and is supposed to give you a sense of peace and well being, which also getting your blood flowing for the rest of the day. The students attempted to follow the master, but many lacked the patience for the slow process. Locals were gathering and taking picutres of us. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. This one woman came over and started to help me, I think she could tell I actually wanted to learn what I was doing. Following her was very helpful because she went at her own pace whereas the master kept needing to stop so the translator could explain what to do. Several other groups gathered in the square and it was interesting to watch how in synch they all were with one another.
        After Tai Chi, we returned to the ship. About an hour later I had my second SAS trip, this one to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a city about 2 hours outside of Shanghai. It is much smaller, with a population of about 4 million (that's considered a small city by China's standards). It is most noted for West Lake, a large, beautiful lake in the city that is surrounded by parks and gardens. It is regarded as one of the most romantic places in all of China. It is also one of the ancient capitals of China. It was the capital of the Wuyue Kingdom from 907 to 978 during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was also the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty from 1123 until 1276 when a mongol invasion overthrew the Southern Song and the Yuan Dynasty was established (the capital was then moved to Beijing).
        I read a little about Hangzhou in a class I took last semester on Historic Lives of China. One of the people we studied, Su Dongpu was a prefect in this area starting in 1071. He was originally in the capital, but he disliked the difficult politics there because he felt he couldn't accomplish anything so requested an assignment elsewhere. In Hangzhou he
        “found it possible to administer the Green Sprouts program for the benefit of some of the people. His basic focus was on the variety of human nature and experience and his [had] suspicion[s] of all efforts to impose uniformity... Chinese policymakers all too often have lacked Su's suspicion of uniformity and have made great trouble for themselves and their people by trying to impose on all of China policies that [only] make sense for some important part of it....
        In the Hangzhou years, especially in the long, tranquil weekends in the hill monasteries, Buddhism came to affect him more deeply... Chan [the Chinese equivalent of Zen Buddhism] ways of being in the world without clinging to it deepened his own understanding of how he could respond to humanity in all its variety and not impose his own fixed ideas on it.” (From Mountain of Fame by John Willis- this was the book we used in my class).
        He lead several social welfare projects and also brought together 200,000 workers to build the Su Causeway to protect the quality of the lake and provide walking grounds. The causeway was built out of mud dredged from the bottom of the lake
        Su Dongpu was also a great poet, one of the most famous in Chinese history. One poem that he wrote while riding a boat on West Lake resonated in my heart. I read it several times during my trip there.

On A Boat, Awake at Night
Faint wind rustles reeds and cattails;
I open the hatch, expecting rain- moon floods the lake.
Boatmen and water birds dream the same dream;
A big fish splashes off like a frightened fox.
It's late- men and creatures forget each other
While my shadow and I amuse ourselves alone.
Dark tides creep over the flats- I pity the cold mud-worms;
The setting moon, caught in a willow, lights a dangling spider.
Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;
How long before you've lost it- a scene like this?
Cocks crow, bells ring, a hundred birds scatter;
Drums pound from the bow, shout answers shout.

        Su Dongpu's story is a fascinating one. He accomplished much, wrote brilliant poetry, but his life was not without hardship. He was exhiled twice be the Chinese court for speaking out against its policies and was separated from his family. A disease he contracted during his later exile eventually lead to his death. Regardless, he refused to let his spirit be beaten! Despite living in horrendous conditions, he continued to write beautiful poetry, possibly even his best. He would not let his enemies succeed in bringing him down, no matter how hard they tried.
        He once wrote, “there is something to be seen in everything, and all pleasurable; things need not be especially strange or beautiful. One can get high on the dregs of wine, and full with nuts and vegetables. On this principle, where should I not be happy?” I have the utmost respect for him and I intend to read more of his poetry and biographies upon returning to the states
        After learning a little about Su Dongpu and his experience in Hangzhou, I knew I wanted to visit. So, I signed up for the SAS trip that was supposedly sponsored by Jiao Tong University. Unfortunately, none of the university students attended because it's Chinese New Year, so they were all with their families. A little disappointing since I was especially excited to visit the area with students who would know far more about its history than I, but that's okay; I still made the best of the trip. We had a small group, only four students and four professors, which made for a great balance. The bus ride from Shanghai took about 2 hours and went through lovely countryside. I was fantasizing about renting a bike and riding out into the countryside after returning to Shanghai, but there was so little time that it didn't end up working out. Someday I will return to China and bike all over. There is so much to see! I barely touched the surface in my week there.
        Anyway, we passed by farmers tending their fields, simple but pleasant homes with children playing out front, canals with boatsmen floating down, carrying goods to wherever. This is the China I wanted to see, not the big, westernized cities.
        Our bus driver got lost a few times, but eventually we arrived at the hotel. It was really nice, but I would have preferred one of Hangzhou's hostels. If I had known the Jiao Tong students weren't going to show, I would have come out here on my own, gone at my own pace, stayed longer at a hostel, made some pengyou's (Mandarin for friends) and rented a bike etc... but what can you do...
        After checking it, we ate a family-style dinner at the hotel and chatted a bit before getting on the bus to go to West Lake. Our tour guide, MingMing (which means double clever) arrived just in time. She was hilarious and full of spirit! She was the youngest guide I've ever met, only 22. She had quite the sense of humor, but she also seemed more interested in discussing Western popular culture (her favorite show is Gossip Girl) than traditional Chinese culture. Anyway, she took us to West Lake and we walked around the beautiful park for a little while. It was refreshing to see so many trees! Mingming told us that the saying goes, “In Shanghai, they have 60 people for each tree. Whereas in Hangzhou, they have 60 trees for each person.” Personally, I like trees :)  some people are good... but all the trees that I've encountered are good, so I'd rather have more of them :D
        Then we took a boat ride out on the lake. A walk through this park and then boat ride on the lake is known throughout China as the most romantic experience. So on the boat ride, this Chinese couple came and sat next to me. The husband started to talk to me, asking where I was from and such. He didn't speak much English, but the combination of his skills and the few phrases I knew allowed the conversation to progress. His wife is a doctor and he is an official in the communist party, apparently the head of the cultural department. He gave me his business card, but I couldn't read any of it. Later I had someone translate it and apparently is listed all the books he's published on Confucius. My friend Shaolong says its all rubbish and he's probably not even official. Maybe that's so, but believing its true makes for a better story, so whatever.
        Anyway, I asked the guy “Ni xiang gei wo zuo peng you ma?” (literally “you want with me make friends?”) and he signed for me to wait for a moment and went inside the cabin on the boat. He returned with his two children, his 21-year old son and 15-year old daughter. I don't know by what conditions he was allowed to have two children (China has a policy of one child per family), perhaps he paid the extra fee or he's an ethnic minority, I don't know. Anyway, I asked his kids if they wanted to be my friends and they both said yes. Neither spoke any English, however, so we just smiled and laughed a lot. I did ask “Ni xihuan pa shan?” (“Do you like to climb mountains?”) and they said yes (my reply was “Hao, wei wo shi shan” = “Good, because I am a mountain.”, I was just trying to be silly and I guess it worked because everyone laughed, hopefully they didn't think there was some weird meaning to that though, in English there definitely could be, but Mingming told me that in Chinese it would just be seen as silly).
        At first, everything seemed totally innocent. I found out the son's name was Li Zhe Jian, he's 21 and working towards his MBA. He and his family live in Fuzhou. Myself and the other students were trying to say that they should come hang out with us that evening, but we couldn't get the point across. So I went to get Mingming to help translate. Once she was there, the conversation no longer seemed so innocent.
        The father told Mingming that his son was looking for an American wife. Li Zhe Jian didn't want Mingming to translate that to me, but of course she did. I was just thinking of making pengyou's, apparently he was looking for a wife. The father said that he wanted to fly me back to China after my trip is over; they were serious. He said that the fact that we met on a boat in Hangzhou, the most romantic place in China, was a sign that we were destined to be together. It is our fate.
        After that, I turned silent. Clearly, Chinese marriage traditions are very different from what I'm used to. I sort of knew that already, but I hadn't actually experienced it. The father was trying to arrange a marriage between his son and this American girl he just met. The son was nice and everything, but I have no interest in getting married anytime soon and I don't think I want to move to China. Needless to say, we did not meet up again. After the boat docked, I smiled and waved good bye and that was that. Before the conversation turned serious, I took a picture with them, so now I have a snap shot of my apparent “family-to-be”. Crazy.
        After leaving the park, we headed to a tea village. The tea villages are beautiful! Apparently the tea farmers are the most well-off people in the area. They have their own homes (as opposed to renting apartments or condos as most others in the area do). The tea bushes are grown on the hillside. This is because they like only a little water and sun. If they are planted on a flat region, they get too much water. If they are planted on the mountain top they get too much sun. They are neatly arranged and make for some picturesque views.
        We got to pick some of our own tea leaves, but its not the right season yet so not many of the leaves were ready. Then we watched the drying process. It is the woman's job to pick the leaves and then the men dry them and prepare the tea for packing. First, the leaves are left to dry in the air. Then there is the first drying, then the leaves are placed in a basket to absorb the moisture and then dried a second time. The dryings are done in a large, warm metal bowl. It takes about 4 hours of constant stirring until the drying is complete.
        Then we went inside the tea house to drink some of their tea. It was tasty! The leaves absorb the water and its as if they were never dried! Definitely very different from bagged tea! After the tea village we went out to dinner and then returned to the hotel.
        Myself and the other students, Amanda, Alexandra and Colette went walking around after returning to the hotel. Amanda and Alexandra are sisters and are both from Puerto Rico. Colette is a mathematics and economics major from Maryland (and one of the few people who shares my passion for learning and distaste for superficial conversation. She also doesn't hesitate to speak her mind even if people dislike her or judge her for it. Her and I have really connected and are learning a lot from one another).
        Our goal was to find this Reggae Cafe that we passed on the drive to the hotel. We walked for so long trying to find it and then realized that it was right by the hotel, we just didn't notice it because it was closed so all the lights were off. Silly us. Whatever though, we still enjoyed walked around Hangzhou. It was still early though, so we went into a nearby bar in hopes to make some friends. The first place was pretty empty, but we were talking with this one guy for a little. He spoke some English but mostly I tried to speak Mandarin with him. I have such a hard time understanding it though! Even when they say a phrase that I've learned, I can make it out when they speak with the correct accent. My teacher on the ship is American, so he speaks Chinese with an American accent and it sounds completely different from when a native speaker talks.
        After an hour or so we decided to try somewhere else. The next place had lots of people hanging out, eating, drinking and playing games, so we went there. Then these two foreigners walked in and we made friends with them. Sean was from Ireland and Colin from Scotland, but they moved to China about 10 years ago to go to school. Now Sean works for a marketing firm in Shanghai and Colin works with trademarking in Beijing. We were able to talk to them about subjects that wound be difficult to talk to the natives about but they still had a lot of information. We asked about the one child per family policy and they told us that there are actually many loopholes that allow people to have more children. For instance, if you have at least 1/8 ethnic heritage (that is non-Han Chinese, Han is the dominant group making up about 90% of China's population) you are allowed more children to ensure that your lineage does not die out. They told us it is wise not to talk about Tibet or Taiwan or Obama's meeting with the Dali Lama, because it will most likely stir up some hostility.
        America is sending arms to Taiwan and Obama has agreed to meet with the Dali Lama (possibly regarding Tibet, although both Colin and Sean seemed to think this wouldn't lead to anything revolutionary). Both of these things upset the Chinese, who are very proud of their nation and do not want America meddling in their business. However, I don't know enough about these issues to talk much more about them. We talked about socialism in the UK, the downfalls of a consumer, overly-capitalist society etc. However, Amanda and Alexandra were getting bored and it was getting late, so we left. We exchanged emails and Sean met up with Amanda and Alexandra a few days later in Shanghai to go salsa dancing. Apparently he was hoping Colette and I would be there as well, but we were listening to live jazz in the French Concession instead.
        On the walk back to the hotel there were lots of fireworks in celebration of the New Year. Exciting!
        In the morning we went to the Chan Buddhism Lingyin Temple (which means “Temple of the Soul's Retreat”). The monastery was founded in 328 AD during the Eastern Jin Dynasty by monk Huili, who came from India. We saw the pagoda where his ashes are kept. There are numerous rock carvings and grottos. I wish I had been on my own so that I would have had more time to explore them all. They were really quite exquisite. When I return to China, I will without a doubt visit Hangzhou again and spend more time here.
        The rock carvings span many dynasties and are mostly of Buddha or other buddhist dieties. Most of which are along Feilai Fang (“The peak that flew hither”), a limestone rock formation. Legend holds that the peak was originally from India but flew to Hangzhou overnight as a demonstration of the omnipotence of Buddhist law. Inside the main grotto is a statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, the deity of mercy. There is a crack in the ceiling of the cave that stretches that allows a sliver of sunlight to shine into the cave. This is known as the "one thread of heaven".
        There was also a carving of the monk Xuanzang and his three attendants (including the Monkey King, Sun Wukong). Xuanzang made an epic journey to India and back to bring Buddhist scrolls and idols and is immortalized in the tale “Journey to the West” (parts of which I read last semester in my class). These carvings were defaced during the cultural revolution, however, when the Red Guards invaded the temple.
        My favorite carving was definitely the Laughing Buddha. He is also known as the cloth bag monk because underneath his arm he hold a cloth bag. The bag is supposed to carry all of your trouble. So if you are having trouble in your life, you should go to him and he will toss them into his bag and make you laugh and smile with his big grin and fat, joyous belly. The laughing, happy statues were built during the Song dynasty, when the Han people ha control of the empire. Some statues had a more solemn, serious appearance typical of Tibetan-type Buddhism and these were built under the Yuan dynasty, which was controlled by the Mongols.
        We only got to enjoy the statues in passing because our guide was rushing us to make sure we fit in everything she had planned, but I still managed to enjoy them and take in their beauty. Next, we went to the main monasteries and temples (the actual buildings). The square was packed with people celebrating the new year. Hangzhou has one of the longest new years in China. They take off 15 days! More than twice as long as most of the other regions. Hundreds of people were burning incense and making their prayers. I decided to walk around the outsides of the temples in the direction opposite of the way the guide suggested so that I could avoid the heaviest crowds.
        The largest hall is the Hall of the Heavenly Kings which houses a statue of the Maitreya Buddha in his manifestation as the Laughing Buddha. This hall is as large or larger than the main hall at many temples, reflecting its status as the center of Buddhism in south-eastern China.   (I didn't go in this one, too many people.)
        Across the courtyard from this hall is The Great Hall of the Great Stage (I did enter this one). It houses a traditional statue of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. The current statue was carved in 1956 from camphor wood and coated with 60 taels of gold! It is the largest wooden Buddhist statue in all of China. The walls are lined with statues of more than 150 Buddhist figures and the ceiling is decorated in brilliant color with traditional Buddhist symbols (including the swastika, which was originally a Buddhist symbol. The word swastika actually derives from a Sanskrit word meaning a lucky or auspicious object, Hitler just had to go and ruin its good name). There are three other halls as well as several dormitories for the monks. When I exited the Hall of the Great Sage, I noticed one of the monks trying to get down the stairs. There were so many people pushing and shoving, but he remained very patient. There is no need to rush. We caught eyes and smiled at one another
        After seeing two of the main halls, I walked outside the temples, trying to find a more peaceful part. There are many small ponds and statues around and most of the people stayed in the large, famous  buildings, so it wasn't difficult to find a quieter place. Then I had to return to meet the group and we headed to the Liuhe Pagoda (meaning Six Harmonies). The name comes from the six Buddhist ordinances and it was supposed to calm the tides of the Qiantang River. Of course it has no effect on the tides but it does serve as a navigational aid and watchtower.
        It has 13 floors (although only 7 ceilings, one for every two floors) and was originally built
during the Northern Song Dynasty (970-1127AD). It was destroyed during warfare in 1121 and then completely rebuilt in 1165 during the Southern Song Dynasty. The current pagoda is supposedly the one from that time, so it is 855 years old! I climbed all the way to the top (and a little too quickly I think, my legs were a bit sore the next day) to enjoy the view of the river and forest. The inside of the pagoda is decorated with blue, red and green designs and traditional Buddhist figures and motifs.
        Next we went to a silk factory, or more a display house (which makes me a little curious as to how things actually go down at the factories... I doubt its as clean and fair as they make it sound in the show room). The silk is unwound from the cocoons of the silk worm and each cocoon provides 1000-3000 ft of silk thread! The material is incredibly strong, soft, and resistant to odors and bacteria. It is also a fire retardant. Hangzhou brags about being the location of the best silk in all of China (but I bet every silk making town says that). Then we got back on the bus and returned to the ship.