„Heaven is a state of mind“. I feel that since I came to Hangzhou I got a proof of the accuracy of this concept almost every day. Me, being known as a fun person, who doesn’t’ like to write about any boring philosophical stuff, wasn’t planning to reflect this unimportant matter of my unimportant self in my blog, but the events of today talked a little story, forced upon me by one small sample of Chinese crowds. And when some beautiful story comes across my insane brain, the result is surely worth recording.´
It started like a perfectly normal Sunday morning. I woke up, took a taxi, and went to pose for some propagation video about Chinese Tea culture. I was really feeling sorry for the people, since I was looking totally horrible, as I was instructed to wear something bright-colored but my entire jacket collection was either black or green (which for sure doesn’t really stand up, when you run between tea bushes). The only solution was to borrow my friends’ jacket, which was to my great delight pink and made me look really mature and beautiful. After enduring few awkward moments in tea fields,feeling sorry for my tour guide who was pretending that he is really delighted to spend his Sunday morning introducing basic knowledge about tea to a stupid foreigner who asks weird questions about government subsidies (thanks God that we didn’t shoot the planned biking part, because there were no bikes in the whole place).
But exactly in the moment when I decided not to give up on the day yet, I realized that the photographers were actually much more than just cultural propaganda picture machines. We started to talk about the city of Hangzhou and the lack of original „old fashioned“ tea rooms, which were all replaced by modern, elegant and luxurious tea rooms (which have their own charm, but only if you see it for the first time, without knowing that there are thousands of them all around the city, with simile feeling). One of the photographers started to tell me about her accompanying his dad for his
shooting since she was little, helping him to document the change Hangzhou has undergone in the last cca 10 years. With the same glance in her eyes as most of the Chinese have when talking about food, she was slowly creating a beautiful picture of a traditional Hangzhou street, where you couldn´t go from one side to the other without talking to 23436 people, having eaten 32 kilos of food, even though inhabitants are only common working class people. While she was speaking, the selfish me was thinking only about one thing: ask her where it is, ask her where it is, food, people, old houses, cool! But the reality hit me hard (ok not so hard, I can’t possibly study sinology for 4 years and still feel surprised) - there isn’t any single one left in whole Hangzhou. Following were quite predictable stories about her and her dad witnessing old ladies refusing to leave their beloved home, being persuaded by their daughters etc. These stories mostly leave my heartless cynic being totally unshaken, but in the very moment in the very state of mind I felt this brief feeling of helpless sadness (interesting, that in Chinese there is a special word describing this feeling - wunai 无奈，which means that you feel like you have noalternative to change something)… Interestingly we have also talked about fengshui (which I never ever bother to even think about), and different understanding of fengshui in different regions in China, and its importance for human psychology (don’t worry if you don’t follow me as this is normal when reading an article written by someone who doesn’t even remember her own room number, but it might make sense after you finish reading – AND YOU ARE STILL PLANNNING TO FINISH, ARENT YOU?!). And then it came: first wave of complaint about China and its situation (concentration of power and money in hands of few, exaggerated family bonds etc.). Nothing really so revealing in terms of new information, but it was really striking when considering that I was a complete stranger for them and moreover a foreigner (although in the pink jacket I probably really didn’t make the impression of a cunning spy taking an astronomical salary from foreign governments).
For the purpose of making at least some point of this mess, I will not mention the afternoon tour around Hangzhou in a taxi,where I got to meet some guys from Dali, also famous for its big – leaf tea production and jump to the point where I (who till recently thought that tea grows in teabags) find myself in the flat of one former teacher of our tea institute - Liu Zusheng, who is famous for achieving to breed a new tea cultivar with high productivity of tea fruits (can be used for extremely healthy tea oil).
Before starting to get into sentimental crap I must return to the previous scene only for the sake of my clean conscience) and add, that there are still some old tea rooms in the vicinity of Hangzhou, so there is still much worth experiencing!
When I stepped into the apartment of the old couple I felt like stepping into different dimension, so far from the previous happenings (and yet so close muhahaha). It felt exactly like the scene in the last part of Harry Potter when he was “killed” by Lord Voldemort and dreamt about the train station and Dumbledore (only that it felt good and natural, not like a fake scene to make fans happy). The whole apartment was filled with tea and tea stuff and stuff that is used for tea stuff and stuff that is made from tea stuff and tea motives and tea books and for sure souls of tea people etc.It was a little tea heaven with two old tea angles, with such a life vigour, that even hyperactive kids would feel slow and boring next to them.
Mr Liu started to share some thoughts about a book written by 20 years old girl, that he has read recently and immediately started to discuss with us different kinds of personal abilities, forced us to think about how would we solve the China-Taiwan awkward situation (that was when he went to Taiwan for a conference many years ago, and they decorated the hall with Guomingdang flags instead of PRC ones), and of course told us stories of his youth (that obviously never ended). I am sure his wife (who also did tea research) must have heard exactly the same thing at least billion times, but still managed to keep an admiring expression on her face as if she was listening to her first love telling some amazingly creative joke.
They invited us for dinner to one of the near restaurants, which seemed so unusually warm, that I caught myself having a strongly stupid happy smile on my face, especially when I saw the two of them holding hands (oh how would I hate the hand after 58 years!) and sitting close to each other like if it was their wedding day.
However when we parted from the cute old couple, hearts filled with peace and joy, we immediately realized that the old good real life dimension didn’t forget to pick us up in the form of a taxi, which we took back to school (sooo cheap when there are people forced to take it with you!). What followed was a 34 minutes long monologue about the Chinese Communist Party mafia paid by taxes from common people who cannot even say a word of protest and about how I would be raped in any other country except of China, where no one dares to do so (again, I wear the pink jacket). I never heard anyone speaking so hateful about anything, not to mention Chinese person,not to mention that we are talking about his beloved China, not to mention that he specifically targeted CCP, not to mention that he was saying it to totally random strange people.
And this is where (the action part) of my day ends, but where a flow of deep thoughts rich in content and meaning starts… (hahaha)
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Do it for yourself!
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No, just kidding, I don’t believe that you can do it. I will do it for you, because when everyone wants to force their ideas upon you, I can do it also (muhahahaha).
As the right thing, which you should do, when writing an article, is to look as if you have some point, I would like to return to the beginning and repeat:„Heaven is a state of mind“.
(I am too lazy to continue, so I will pretend,that I have ended this part on purpose to leave a poetic feeling).