Yuyuan Gardens 25 July 2013

Misters?  Really?  We need MORE humidity in the air?!

I was at Yu Gardens (a.k.a. Yuyuan Gardens), and I had just approached the algae-green pond.  It was absolutely gorgeous:  The lotus leaves were bigger than dinner plates.  The pond was full of carp--deep orange, silver, white, orange and white.  There were even turtles.  Just seeing all the greenery--a couple of kinds of magnolia trees, quince (reminding me of home), and of course bamboo--made me feel refreshed.  I swear the air was cleaner here.

However, I'd just walked two miles in 100-degree-heat.  I'd thought, ridiculously, that the middle of the day was a great time for a trek like this.  It's easy to think things like that when your A/C unit is pumping away at 25 degrees Celsius!  I was sweating so much that sweat was stinging my eyes.  I'd learned to carry an umbrella, though--many Shanghai girls and even some men do this, and it's the smartest thing ever, as a small bottle of sunscreen costs $10!

Under the zig-zagging bridge across the pond to the teahouse was a series of misters, spraying away, adding an air of mystery to the place.  I wanted to laugh or shake my head, but I didn't.  Instead, I proceeded over the bridge, pausing among groups of Korean, Chinese, French, American, and Brazilian tourists to take pictures and wait for others doing the same.

When I got to the Huxinting ("Mid-lake Pavilion") Teahouse, I saw a glass case with a three blue and white porcelain jars of tea inside.  A cash register rested on top.  There were a few tables here, but I didn't see anyone drinking tea.  Then an employee made eye contact with me.  "Tea upstairs," she said.  She was not smiling.

I'd caught onto this.  Americans smile too much.  At least, I do.  I'd found myself smiling like a monkey on more than one occasion--it wasn't necessary.  I nodded and made my way up the red lacquer stairs--there were quite a few of them, narrow and high, so I proceeded with caution and held the handrail. 

The owner shouted at his son (texting madly) to get a menu (probably) and show me to my seat.  The menu was the cleanest, most beautiful menu I'd held since arriving in Shanghai, with names of tea in a light blue script (in both Chinese and English).  I momentarily felt bad for all the non-English speaking tourists down below. 

I asked him what kind of tea he liked.

"Dragonwell." 

I ordered that. 

There were ashtrays on each table in the tea house (yes, smoking inside public spaces was still permitted in China); thankfully, no one was smoking here.

There were two older Chinese women sitting at a table to my right, and a Chinese lady at the table behind me.  There was another foreigner I'd seen prattling on her cell phone about her students--she was about 50 and didn't notice me.  There were no men up here, other than the owner and the waiter.  One of the Chinese women on the right kept taking photos; the woman behind me kept coughing and mumbling--I didn't want to turn around, and I assumed she was on her cell phone.

Tea was over $10, but it arrived with a big thermos of kai shui (boiled water) to add as I wished to the already steaming cup full of leaves; three small eggs (quail?) hard boiled in soy sauce; three pieces of plain, warm tofu (the firm kind), and two pre-packaged sweets--one like a Japanese mochi, and a tart, candied fruit no bigger than my thumb with a rather large seed inside.  It was an interesting snack.  Along with the treats was a sealed packet containing a fresh-smelling moist towelette, with which I gratefully scrubbed my hands and sweaty face.

At one point I'd noticed that the woman behind me wasn't on her cell phone--she was mumbling to herself.  It was as if she were having a conversation with someone I couldn't see; once in a while she'd look at a tourist down below, giggle, comment, and then cough and hawk and nearly spit. 

I pushed the tea leaves out of the way with the tea cup's lid the way the waiter had shown me--I'd seen people strain their tea this way in Golmud, too, back in 1988--and sipped.  Really hot, but a great green tea flavor.  Not sweet, not bitter or grassy.

You may have thought me insane to be drinking hot tea on a day like this, but according to NPR, it actually makes some scientific sense.  Here's a link to the article:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/07/11/156378713/cool-down-with-a-hot-drink-its-not-as-crazy-as-you-think.  I'd actually had my share of hot tea in the Peace Corps, and I have to admit, it did cool me down somewhat. 

The tea was making me sweat, but in a way that felt purifying.  As I took in the corners of the tiled rooftops swooping up like bird wings, I could imagine the essence of a dragon being released from the leaves by the hot water.  I felt it move into my body like Gatorade--dragonwell.  I honestly felt healed.

The Bridge of Nine Turnings must've worked--it supposedly deflected evil spirits--because it felt very peaceful in the middle of the pond.  The air wasn't arctic, but there must've been A/C somewhere, because I was no longer sweating profusely, and the windows were closed.

Mumble, mumble.  Cough, hack!  Giggle.  The lady behind me flapped her towel for the umpteenth time at an invisible fly or spirit or whatever.

I made my decision.  My tea was finished, and the gardens closed at 5 pm.  I couldn't take The Mumbler any longer.  There are crazies no matter where you go.

Feeling recharged after my tea, I wandered through the maze-like gardens.  After picking up a packet of post cards, I paid the entrance fee (30 yuan, or about 5 bucks).  After fighting through masses of tourists and gift shops with overpriced knick-knacks (wood carvings, fans, chopsticks, "silk" clothing, jade jewelry), I was finally seeing roped-off rooms where people had done calligraphy or performed on stage, There were high-end shops with fabulous paintings by local artists.  And of course, there were the trees.

Everywhere were ecstatically healthy-looking trees:  a towering gingko, Korean boxwood, Siberian elm, lacebark pine, Japanese camellia, and Kaido crabapple.  (No, I am not a botanist:  the Latin names had been on display, and I'd had to Google them). 

After seeing so much "green gold" (trees providing shade), I was more than a little saddened to see a few scrawny banana trees clinging to life with their yellow leaves, looking like a Micronesian version of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.  It may have felt like Micronesia today, in terms of weather, but these banana trees weren't half as lush as the ones I'd seen as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the isle of Pohnpei.

The patterns on the ground were intricate puzzles, bricks and stones shoved up by tree roots and buckling with humidity.  Some of the larger, older stones that made stairs were worn shiny and smooth by millions of touristy feet, reminding me of the Great Wall--it would not be safe to walk here after a rainstorm.

The carp in the various ponds and streams were quite fat and used to being fed.  You'd think that fact and the heat would've made them lazy, but it didn't.  Some young adult tourists were sprinkling what looked like gray-green fish flakes onto the water's surface, and a hundred carp were suddenly sitting/floating on top of one another--begging.  They begged like baby birds, open carp mouths gulping air and water and sometimes food.  There was a lot of thrashing about, and the feeders--probably college students, the girls in skirts and holding umbrellas--laughed along with me.

One of my concerns about living in a big city was noise.  For the last six years, I'd been living in quiet old Spokane, Washington; before that, I'd spent three years in New York City, and no place was ever totally quiet there.  Would there be anywhere in Shanghai I could escape to, even for a few minutes, to hear twittering birds, falling water, and God's breath sighing in the trees? 

The answer was yes, as long as I added babbling tourists to the list!  Here at Yu Gardens there was peace, even amid the racket and chaos that is Shanghai.

 

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