My Weekend Getaway with Mr. and Mrs. Ma

On the high speed train

Bright and early Saturday morning, the Mas picked me up and whisked me away to the high speed train to Hangzhou, the ancient capital city of the Song Dynasty, visited by both Marco Polo, who called it "The City of Heaven, the most beautiful and magnificent in the world," and Ibn Battuta, who also said it was the largest city he had ever seen.  It was a huge trade city, at the end of the Grand Canal that ran all the way to Beijing, and hugely cosmopolitan, with everyone from Jews to Muslims living here as well as Chinese. The city itself isn't so amazing nowadays, but the West Lake, or  Xi Hu, has been the subject of poetry, literature, painting and philosophy for centuries.  There are a lot of legends surrounding the islands, the pagodas, the temples, the trees and the water, and one of the largest Buddhist temple compounds was built right on the edge of the lake.  It's also very famous for its green tea, Longjing, the finest tea in China, the tea of the emperors.

We were picked up by another couple, the parents of a 9th grader at Northwest, and our first stop was the Tea Museum, where I learned all about the history of tea.  The first ancient text about tea was written during the Tang Dynasty, and it was called the Tea Classic, written by Lu Yu, the first tea scholar, in around 760.  If I were as obsessed with tea as I am with coffee, I might read it, but I'm really more of a coffee gal.  Still, I was drawn into the world of tea as I learned all about the history, the different varieties, the way tea has been (and should be) prepared, the various properties of tea, and so forth.  Did you know that there was a "tea and horse" road even before there was a Silk Road?  Neither did I!  It went from Yunan and Sichuan to Tibet and people brought tea and horses across.  Did you know that up until 1391 tea was made in these cakes, like Japanese Green tea, but then the emperor decreed it would only be loose leaf tea?  However, the Japanese still do it in those cakes, with the brushes and all, but they got that from China.  I became even more interested when Tony's parents took us to the Longjing Tea Village, up on the misty tea mountain, to have lunch at the home of a tea farmer, where we would "look at tea, drink tea, buy tea," as they told me.

tea in its bulk, dry state

pouring the tea

Showing how tea grows

We climbed up the rainy path to the tea field and the farmer explained to us how the tea grows, when it is harvested, dried, and prepared.  They gave us some samples, which were delicious, and we bought a whole bunch of tea before going back down to where lunch was prepared.  

This was one of three or four HUGE meals I had over the weekend.  Every time I thought the meal was over, they would bring out more dishes.  Everyone sat around the table for hours, talking and eating more and more.  It was like having several Thanksgiving dinners in a row!

 After the tea lunch, we went to the Lingyin Temple complex, which has a whole bunch of different temple buildings with various statues that were carved anywhere from the 300s to the 20th century. Each building was unique and amazing in its own way.  One of my favorites was the temple of the 500 Arhats, which ad 500 bronze statues, each completely different from the others.  Each Arhat had his own particular personality that was so captivating I could have looked at them all day.  But there were many more.

 

The Wisdom Body

Here I am in front of West Lake, enjoying the mist.  We walked and walked, through the temple complex, down to the lake, up the side of another mountain village, admiring the hundreds of pagodas and mystical buildings, statues, and other carvings.

Of course, then we had to have another meal, at the most famous restaurant in Xi Hu, where you have a dish called "beggar's chicken," baked in mud and lotus leaves (that's the dish in the middle there -many more dishes came).  Again, we ate and ate, and talked and talked, and ate more,  I don't even know what all I ate (I think there was some eel in there), but it was all delicious.

And that was only day one!  Tony's parents dropped us off at the hotel for a 10 hour sleep after all that walking and eating.  The next morning I got the thrill of my life when Jimmy Zhang's mother picked us up!  One of my favorite things about the entire experience was getting to spend time with the parents of students that I love so much.  I especially enjoyed the way they called each other "Jimmy Mama" and "Tony Baba" the entire time.  It was awesome.  I tried to convey to them how much we at Northwest love their kids, how special they are, and most of all how grateful and honored we are that they have sent them thousands of miles across the ocean to be with us.  

"Jimmy Mama" took us to the little town of Tangqi, also known as the Venice of the East.  Why does that always happen?  Why can't Venice be known as the Tangqi of the West, huh?  Everything has to reference back to Greece and Rome.  When I was in Edinburgh, it was known as the "Athens of the North."  Was Athens ever the Edinburgh of the South?  At any rate, here I am in Tangqi, 

And you can see why it is compared to Venice, because that bridge does look an awful lot like the Rialto Bridge, doesn't it?  While there, we went to the brand new Rice and Granary Museum, which was a bit much, even for me.  It had the exhaustive history of ancient grains and staple crops throughout the world, which is of course exactly what the 9th grade humanities class has been studying in my absence, doing reports on the earliest civilizations to spring up in the agricultural revolution.  This was the most painstakingly detailed list of grains, granaries, growing techniques, grain trade and grain history that I had ever seen.  It had long, detailed captions with awkward English translations like the following:

Now you know if I, a humanities teacher who is obsessed with ancient civilizations and grains and things, says it was too much for me, that it must have been really over the top.  Luckily after that, we went to the street market to look at the really cool stands with interesting foods, then we were whisked off to Jimmy's parents country house for - yes, you guessed it - another giant meal.

We ate and talked for three hours!  Of course, most of the time they were speaking Chinese so I didn't really know what they were saying, but I did put in my two cents when I could. Finally, we had to get on the train back to Shanghai, and Jimmy's dad drove us to the station.  It was an amazing experience with these wonderful, thoughtful and generous Northwest School families.  When the driver picked us up at the station, the Mas asked if I wanted to go out to dinner.  I was like, no, please, please, no more food!  And you know how much I love to eat.  

When I first arrived for my visit, Katie Ma told Tony's dad that it was my dream to go to Hangzhou.  He said, "Well, then your dream is coming true!"  At the end of the weekend, she asked me if Hangzhou had lived up to my expectations, whether the dream of Hangzhou was better than the reality.  No, I replied - the visit was beyond my dreams of Hangzhou, better than I could have possibly planned for myself.