China Revisited --[26]

Angel

The highlight of Guangzhou has involved, on both our visits, reuniting over dinner with some of our Chinese kids, meeting their parents, and sometimes making new friends. When I had explained to one of the Chinese homestay daughters how many dinners we had had on our first visit, she explained that dinners were an important form of hospitality.  Then she added, "Maybe they don't know what else to do with you."

Fair enough. This second trip, being a bit longer, allowed us to see some old parts Guangzhou that were not part of our initial trip in 2011 -- in addition to our impressive dinners.

One our first full day in Guangzhou we were taken to one of these "old" parts of Guangzhou by the parents of one of the girls who had been scheduled to live with us this last school year.   We were privileged to spend the first morning of our stay in Guangzhou with Angel's parents.

Angel's parents picked us up at the hotel where we were staying in the "new" part of Guagzhou. After Edward exchanged information with them, presumably about our destination, we traveled out to Yuyin Shan Fang (Ancestral Garden), a restored ancestral home in Nancun Town, Panyu, Guangzhou City.

This walled compound, built in 1871, is not old by Chinese standards. Nevertheless, it is filled with intricate and significant architectural and artistic features, as well as astonishingly beautiful and beautifully designed gardens and water spaces.

Each of the three dozen or so buildings, some connected and some not, has its own unique function and its own architectural or artistic features.

Just inside these front gates, guarded by traditionally dressed and fearsome warriors, one finds rooms and "landscapes" dedicated both to the functioning of this large, wealthy household and to activities, each of which required a different view of one kind of garden, tree, flower, or scene. In other words, there was a unique aspect to almost every view and vantage point in the compound.

 

One of the more intriguing features for a poet is that there is an octagonal room built in the middle of a pond where the house master can enjoy poetry and wine.  It is here that he sits to gain inspiration for his own poems, one of which is inscribed on the door post.

Through the doors on either end of the room, he can see a bridge over which members of his household pass from one side of the compound to the other. There was also a room with a special stained window (called a Manzhou window) that would allow one to see the scene outside in all four seasons, just by looking through different parts of the window. So, it is explained, one can see a winter scene even though such a scene never happens in southern China.




 These features played for us against the recent history of the cultural revolution.  When the cultural revolution broke out and it became clear that powerful, landed families were being sought and punished for being powerful and propertied, the family fled.


 In order to preserve the house itself from destruction and vandalism at the hands of cultural revolutionary zealots, townspeople hid or covered over many of the unique features of the house, putting up plain walls over priceless artifacts and architecture and hanging pictures of Chairman Mao that the zealots would not move or destroy.

These days the compound is protected as a National Protected Cultural Relic.  All of these photographs were taken by Angel's father, who was good enough to share his pictures with me since my camera was "full" at that moment. Fortunately, he has a good eye and his ideas about what to photograph are quite similar to my own.

It was cold on this early January day in Guangzhou as our winter jackets suggest.  The circular entryways were an interesting feature of this site as was the intricately cared door frame, now blocked to outside access, through which only family members could enter or leave the compound.

At the end of our visit to Yuyin Shan Fang, we were treated to ginger custard, a regional delicacy that was made to order. We were a tad hesitant because not every "ginger" is agreeable to the western taste buds, but we agreed to have some. In quite a marvelous way, two hot liquids, cooked separately, are poured together, which congeals immediately to form the custard. It was warm enough to warm us from the inside and quite tasty.

From now on, every trip we make to Guangzhou will need to include a visit to the Yuyin Shan Fang and a bit of the ginger custard.

After the cultural tour, Angel's parents took us back into town for lunch at an upscale restaurant. We had sea-snail soup, shrimp, noodles, and dumplings. For some reason my notes are not more specific than noodles and dumplings. To be that general is a little like identifying potatoes in an American meal without indicating more specifically the kind of potatoes or how they are prepared.

Angel's parents are as nice as anyone you would ever want to meet. Language was only a small obstacle, once more mitigated by Edward's services as essential translator, with Syan's help. Angel's parents extended love and hospitality to us in unmistakable ways. We shared laughter, admiration, food, friendship, and at the end tears.