Adventure in Hangzhou

Lyrics: The promise of rain can be heard on the breeze – Jonathan Rice

Upon John’s and mine return, like prodigal children crawling back to polluted and hot Shanghai from the more polluted and hotter Nanjing, we took a day trip with Eric and Lisa to Hangzhou.

On that morning Eric, always the parental figure in the group, brought us some street-bought deliciousness for breakfast, and we headed out. The train ride was short and in less than two hours we found ourselves in one of China’s most famous cities. It didn’t seem particularly impressive, especially coming from Shanghai – the Porsche dealership was boring and there were no massive skyscrapers – but the natural beauty, the way that elements of life, and water especially, has a place in the city, was incredibly refreshing. I had not realized how much I had needed to see a mountain, or walk by water that did not smell like sewage until I stepped out of the cab from the train station and found myself facing, not 30 yards away, the West Lake (Xi Hu), stretching for over three square miles in the middle of a metropolitan city. Later, surrounded by green hills, strolling along the willow-shaded causeways and side by side with lotus blossoms upon lotus blossoms, I felt like I had a better understanding of why Marco Polo had been interested in becoming governor of this city [It is unclear whether Marco Polo ever actually set foot in Hangzhou, but my travel guide said so and I didn’t mind adding a whimsical touch to the adventure, false although it may have been]. What is remarkable is the presence of nature IN the city: it’s not the mere growing of shady trees along the streets, or the parks that feel like an tropical oasis, but the fact that off of the busiest road, you can step off down a wooden or stone plank or walkway and be instantly surrounded by whispering trees and rustling water. I’ve never seen nature so well incorporated into a city before.

Looking for a place to have lunch, we stumbled into a hole-in-the-wall establishment run by, of all things, Chinese Muslims! When people, myself included, usually think of China, I doubt it comes to mind that, aside from languages and cultural differences, the variety of ethnic groups is truly astounding. For instance, admitting my blatant ignorance, I was surprised to find that there are more than 20 million Muslims in China! And we were in the presence of several of them. All the workers of the restaurant seemed to belong either to the same family or to a tightly knit small group. They were also all rather young and male. The men were cooking, serving, and kneading the dough, so we wondered where exactly the mothers and wives of these people were.

In any case, they stared at us under their kufis [what is the plural of Kufi?], and the establishment’s other patrons all turned from their meals to look at the two white people who had just walked in with two young people who were probably their interpreters. Dismissing all possible awkwardness (after all, this was a noodle restaurant, and there is next to nothing I will not do for a good plate of carbohydrates), I pushed for us to sit down. We ordered and discussed how the tables next to us were talking about us. Soon, it became apparent that our random choice of restaurant had been a lucky one: the noodles were homemade. Every piece of pasta that was served had just been mixed, kneaded, “whipped,” cut, and then boiled about ten feet away from us! Needless to say, the food was delicious. It also cost less than $2.

After a very satisfying lunch, we found a small shop that rented bicycles for a couple of hours, intending to go around the lake. I stopped briefly to consider how happy I was to have tackled my bike-riding inadequacies months earlier, and we were off! The first part of the biking trip was a bit of a rollercoaster. On the one hand, I was ecstatic to be riding a bike again after two weeks of not being on one and happy to be seeing the city from this previously unknown to me mode of transportation. On the other hand, Chinese drivers seem to be either: (a) drunk, (b) driving a woman who is desperately in labor, has an urgent need to get to the hospital in the next 5 seconds, and does not care that there is a red light, (c) foaming at the mouth from anger, desperation, or something that looks suspiciously like rabies. In other words, the apocalypse was coming and we were trying to bike through it. It is also worth mentioning that I was wearing a skirt, which, despite being knee-length, probably afforded some pedestrians more than I had intended to share.

After biking almost halfway around the lake and making a couple of sightseeing stops [we still had the Giant Buddha Temple to go, AND the tea farm that Eric had promised me…make a mental note of this for later], we heard the unmistakable clash of nearby thunder. We had previously rented a miniature boat and taken it VERY slowly around a miniature lake in one of the most anticlimactic experiences of the trip. It was, however, hilarious because (a) I was steering the vessel, and (b) people in other boats laughed at us for no discernable reason. Now, I looked up to see that the beautiful green color of the mountains surrounding the city looked all the more poignant against the dark grey backdrop. That moment before a storm when everything looks brighter and the hues of trees and flowers are accentuated by the oncoming darkness has always been one of my favorite things about rain.

Eric, staying true to his parental figure nature, packed our few precious belongings into his Swiss Army backpack and covered it up with some kind of incredibly cool rainproof hood. A bag with a hood, leave it to the Swiss to think of some neat-o little thing like that.

Soon, there we were, in the middle of a torrential downpour. It was an all-out monsoon, or at least what I would think of if the word “monsoon” ever came to mind. The rain was slanting, my contacts were moving and my vision was blurred, my body was completely soaked, but, feet firmly planted in my pedals, water pouring down my face, bike skidding at every turn, I couldn’t help but smile. I was biking. In the rain. In China. Even if only for the forty-five minutes we spent in our insane battle against the elements, smiling at each other, being pointed out by all of the reasonable citizens who had sought shelter, the past couple of months floated up and away, and life seemed full. Full. Brimming with surprises, boiling over with moments of fulfillment, joy, and instantaneous laughter. We arrived in time to return our bikes, squeezed some water from our clothes, and embarked on a search for food, envigorated by our adventure! Our bike renters recommended a tea house that was a couple of blocks away after we asked them to recommend a place that allowed completely soaked people in for a sit-down meal. As we walked up to the restaurant, a caught a glimpse of a woman who had just gotten out of a BMW walking into said restaurant, and burst out laughing. Yes, surely we were going to be allowed inside, with the boys in their wife-beaters, Lisa’s blue underwear peaking through her now-transparent white skirt, and me, constantly twitching my eyes to readjust my contacts in an odd, slightly insane gestures.

I was proven wrong. The hostess not only seated us (granted, in a far away corner booth), but also brought us a prized gift: a blow dryer. That early evening we ate to our heart’s content: the buffet of authentic Chinese food constituted one of the best meals I was to have in that country during my entire stay. The vegetables in particular were incredible: edamame, oriental cucumber, white choi sum, pei tsai – ah, any Asian market near where I live in the future is going to know me as a frequent customer after this! And the fruit, ah the fruit! Star fruit, dragon fruit, lychees, etc. It was an incredible all-you-can-eat spread and the tea which we ordered to accompany it was of similar quality. We sat and chatted, happy to be drying off, happy to have come.

We headed home to Shanghai on the evening train. It didn’t matter that I had not seen the Giant Buddha in the temple or that the tea farm had remained unvisited. There will be other summers for that, hopefully soon. But having all of the tired, all possibly sad feelings lifted to be refreshed by rain, by bikes, by beautiful landscapes, by friends – that moment probably wouldn’t have happened in the same way at any other time or any other place.