CHINA BEFORE CORONA
The leaves ain’t brown, and the sky isn’t gray. I went for a sail, on a spring’s day. I would be in quarantine if it was today.
Corona dreaming, on Hangzhou’s western lake.
Wait a minute! What is this place?!
You may have heard about Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. If you know your China really well, you may have also heard of Xian, Chongqing, Shenzhen & Kunming. But Hangzhou? That sounds a bit too much of a morbific tongue-twister to be a real place of more than 9 million residences, isn’t it?
Of-course it is. And it’s damn beautiful. And safe. Well, safe in 2008, when I took these pictures.
Curious about China? Don’t miss out on these great posts!
* Government doesn’t count dead Chinese
* The good, the bad, and the Han
* What lies on the other end of the Silk Road
* More Dali than Dali
A weekend in Shanghai
A friend of mine had this great idea. “Let’s open a high-end coffee chain in China, and educate Chinese how to enjoy a cup of real Italian Cappuccino,” he said. The business plan made sense – any business plan would once you multiply it by 1.2 billion. He took in some investments, relocated to Shanghai, and opened Citta Coffee House smack in the heart of Shanghai. The place was impeccably chick and the grand opening – glamourous. As good friends, we were cordially invited, and as good friends with lots of frequent millage points to spare, we even showed up. Once the event was over and all the “must-see” tourist sites of Shanghai checked (we’ll leave them for a separate future post), we took a car on a sunny Sunday morning and drove two hours southeast to a place I’ve never heard about before – Hangzhou.
Hangzhou – so I was told – is a small town with lots of history and a beautiful lake. I later learned it is small only in Chinese terms; its history goes back at least two millennia, and the lake on its western edge is a UNESCO world heritage site. So far, so good for a place whose name strikes an image of grim gallows.
Having visited there, I can only say it’s beautiful. The lake, that is – not the city. Hangzhou town is nothing to write home about. Just another big Chinese metropolitan area with pollution, congestion, and lots of tasteless development. Luckily we only passed through to get into the main attraction.
The West Lake
The sun was a perfect April blend of warmth and gentleness. The lake was as crystal flat as Washington DC’s reflecting pool. The vistas stretched west away from the bustling city’s skyline into a verdant scenery of rolling hills and pagodas. My wife and I were huddled inside a small, cozy gondola, piloted by a smiling Chinese gondolier who – thank god – didn’t sing. “This is perfect,” said my wife. She was right, of course. It was perfect. A perfect day, in a perfect lake. And not just any lake, as we soon would learn.
Hangzhou’s West Lake is even older than its city and crisscrossed by causeways and dotted with countless temples, pagodas, gardens, and artificial islands and lakes. Yes, artificial lakes within a real lake – you’ve read this one right.
And this is not just a pretty tourist trap. The place has some real cultural credence to rival Rome and Jerusalem. Well, maybe I have gone a bit too far this time, but I believe the point is has been made clear. This place’s beauty goes beyond, way beyond Hangzhou. And I’m not saying this figuratively. As a matter of fact, Washington DC’s Reflective Pool owes it’s concept and design to this place, thirteen time-zones to the east.
The Muse and the cash
The bottom line is that West Lake did not just inspire us. Far from it. Throughout the centuries, this spot was the source of inspiration for poets, painters, and architects for its natural beauty and idealized fusion between humans and nature. Many indicate this place as the most important source of inspiration for Chinese garden designs that were later copied in Japan, Korea, and through there – to the rest of the world.
We continue to sail in total tranquility until our charted boat captain points out onto what seemed at first glance to be three small semi-submerged buoys. A closer look reveals them as three small pear-shaped pagodas arranged in a triangle in the water. They are nice, but nothing exceptional, which makes our captain’s enthusiastic finger pointing at them a bit strange. We cannot understand his broken Mandarin (especially since mine’s barely passable), but we can see the picture on the back of the One-RMB note he hands us.
The image is identical!!
What do you know, we’re in the presence of a true Chinese national monument – one in league with the Great Wall, The Three Gorges, Guilin, and the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. Respect!
So much for cash. Or is it?
Stupid tourist
Our charted boat time has come to its end, but not our role as tourists.
The place is also known for its high-quality green tea, or at least that’s what the book says. To reach it you need to travel to the near Longjing village just to the west of the lake.
The place claims to grow “the most prestigious tea in China”. I kid you not. The claims go as far as saying (and I quote) “Visiting Longjing is the equivalent of a tour through some fancy Bordeaux Premier Cru vineyard: the source of the most prized expression of the national tipple. Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say Longjing tea is the Dom Perignon of teas: light but fragrant, refreshing but full-bodied and, above all, expensive”.
YES, it is. I would also add – outrageously expensive.
Almost as stupidly expensive as buying a f***ing Dom Perignon bottle. I never ever purchased a Dom Perignon, although I did toy with the idea of holding one while doing Sean Connery’s Goldfinger routine “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!”. I did wind up breaking the bank and buying a Longjing Tea! Why? Read the above paragraph headline. All I can tell you is it tastes like a green tea costing one percent of what I paid.
But what do I know about high-quality green tea? I’m just a Gweilo with cash.
For more Chinese adventures read the below posts:
* Government doesn’t count dead Chinese
* The good, the bad, and the Han
* What lies on the other end of the Silk Road
* More Dali than Dali
