Chengdu : Jasmine infused bliss in China's 'lazy' city.
I explained to Jingjing a week or more later “Ya know, of all the beautiful scenery and experiences I have had in China so far, one of my favourite moments of all was just sitting and reading with cups of fresh jasmine tea in Peoples Park in Chengdu. Such a wonderfully laid back city.”. “Laid back!” she exclaimed. “It’s more than laid back. You know what all other Chinese think of Chengdu? Lazy! The lazy city. All they like in Chengdu is good spicy food, no work and lazy time!” she explained in a well humoured, not an irritable or (too) envious tone. Sounds to me like Chengdu’s got it juuuust about right.
An opaque milky haze permeates the city, Sichuan provinces capital city this morning from concrete feet to sky ceiling and where the twain do meet. The sun’s work is being hindered today. Mist? No, I don’t think so. Pollution? Possibly. Hard to tell. It’s warm and muggy. My breathing slightly tight. But Chengdu’s roads and road traffic are nothing compared to the chaos of other cities I have visited. The sizeable, but not overpowering number of mopeds and motorbikes and even pedal cycle bikes are almost all electric (as in Kunming). A positive on several levels. Silent or at least quieter roads. Saigon this is not. Standing waiting to cross the many large intersections it is like watching a video of any modern, progressive metropolis but in slow motion, and with the volume turned right down.
Taking pride in its appearance? Well, it’s not the prettiest of cities at all. But it seems to take care of what it’s got. Ladies with trolleys, mops, large water buckets and hand towels stoop to wash public waste bins and advertising cases. A man very carefully applies some kind of filler to small chips and dents in the many, relatively new looking iron benches that line the many shopping promenades in the city centre. Spray paint at the ready for the finishing touches. Small embodiments of the ‘All because of you, Chengdu will be better…’ epithets emblazoned on the sides of many of the public buses in town. ‘Be strong to make progress, to have bright future’ another. Words of self-encouragement for a province that will tomorrow commemorate 1 year since a 8.
Shops shops shops. Chengdu is definitely my first real glimpse of the ‘New’ mass consumerist ( dare I state the obvious but heretic?) Capitalist China. But still plenty of the old, the calm, the traditional life charm in Chengdu too. Street side food hawkers and real earthy, hectic, aromatic and visceral meat and vegetable markets to be found. Some steamed buns. Some “Yums!”. A happy tum. I carry on.
Next a stroll around Renmin ( ‘Peoples’) Park. One of those oases of green and water calm that I’ll soon learn China’s pretty good at harbouring even in the midst of its most claustrophobic of concrete Meccas.
Elderly Chinese stand amongst the serene vegetation calmly practising callisthenics or administering Tai Chi gestures to the winds. Fish in large numbers swarm gold, white, red and orange in small ponds that bewitch children as they cast towards them their magic crumbs. A sign reads ‘Man protect the green, The green does good to man’. “Here here I say!”.
Besides the largest of the ‘lakes’ (a pond really) at Renmin Parks heart are some of the famous Chengdu tea houses. Chengdu apparently the historical home of China’s revered, legendary tea drinking culture. Apparently also one of the last places where some vestige of tea drinking ‘ceremony’ can be found. I sit me self down with Paul Theroux’s ’Dark Star Safari’ (a book I am enjoying with rapture and almost the first ’travel book’ I’ve ever read) and order a cup of fresh jasmine tea. This is served with one of China’s ubiquitous, tall thermos hot water descanters so you are at your ease to have fresh, hot teas for as long as you please.
It is beautiful. The delicate whites of the china cup and saucer.
I am so relaxed here. Just tea, a book and people and slow life all abouts.
Further amblings around town. It’s a big one with deceptively long distances point to point but a good bus network for the lazy or time-pressed. I visit the Wenshu Temple. Notable at least for a couple of points at least. One being that it is a rare example of a temple in this part of China that was protected from and survived the ravages of the Cultural Revolution and secondly for the fact it costs a mere 5RMB ($0.60) to enter. An economic gesture flying defiantly in the face of most of China’s heavily reconstructed and heavily overpriced ‘cultural’ sites. It’s good for a stroll with some fine examples of Chinese pagoda and pavilion style temple architecture. Apparently the vegetarian restaurant and tea house housed within its grounds are a knockout too, but I’m not in need right now.
Next I decide to go for a long stroll along the Fu and Nan Rivers that thread together through the city. This is another excellent way I find of inducting yourself into the real (slow) life pulse of a city and its inhabitants. The less looked for public spaces. Or those not frequented by fly-by-night, guidebook-clutching visitors anyways. And so it proves. One resounding positive I will cherish from my 6 weeks in China is the strength and respect for family as the basis, root, foundation and branch of society it retains. A society on such an enormous scale too. Extended, close-knit and cohabiting families are still the norm whether in a rural or an urban setting.
And this closeness is not confined to the private intimacy of ones home.
Here we have the elderly, the tired, the retired and the young all making the most of leisure time.
It’s been a simple, beautiful day.
It’s to the train station for me now. I bought my ticket with some minor effort yesterday.
But whatever the madness to come may be, I will remember my jasmine tea in Chengdu, Renmin Park.
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