Shaoxing and the mysterious yin-yang of travel

What do you do when you’ve traveled to a Chinese city like Shaoxing (绍兴) which has so much to see, but you don’t have enough time to see it all?

You have to visit the sites that you can get to, and just forget the rest of them. The tantalizing pull of more things to see, do, and experience is part of the magic of travel. The things you aren’t able to get to are just as much part of the experience as what you do see.

And what better place to absorb the yin and yang of travel than China?

After leaving Tunxi Masayo and I ended up spending about five days in Shaoxing, an ancient-feeling town in eastern China with small canals zigzagging all across it, fascinating monuments to some of the area’s favorite sons, and long narrow alleys with white-walled buildings holding small shops and smoky old secrets.

Right away, when you enter Shaoxing, it’s easy to fall in love with the place. The busy but quiet waters flow through the canals, over which are countless stone or concrete bridges over which school kids patter, smoking men with fishing poles saunter, and women carry sacks of vegetables. The buildings are white, the blossoms are pink, and the gritty, cheerful liveliness of the little winding alleys beckons the inquisitive to find out what’s around every next corner.

Our unremarkable little hotel was in the middle of town, and along a busy street that nonetheless wasn’t too noisy. A grocery store lay across the road and little roadside restaurants and simple eateries were excellent to dine at and easy to find.

Best of all, many of the sites in Shaoxing were within walking distance.

In the shadow of the Sage of Calligraphy

A former residence of legendary Wang Xizhi, the so-called “Sage of Calligraphy”, is in Shaoxing. Wang Xizhi lived in the fourth century and became a huge influence not only on Chinese calligraphy, but that of Japan as well.

In true “yin yang” style, nothing of his original work remains today despite the great reverence he continues to enjoy.

The reconstructed and well-kept temple, Jiezhu, where he used to give calligraphy lessons was a short walk from our hotel and when we were there a group of people was out in front, tracing Chinese characters on a little monument. It was a taste of what was to come when we took a local bus a couple of days later out to the larger and more famous Lanting.

Lanting, or “Orchid Pavilion”, is an area near the modern city of Shaoxing where several esteemed writers met in the year 353 for a rice-wine inspired writing session. Cups of the alcoholic elixir floated down a small stream, and when a cup stopped, the nearest person had to drink it down and then write a poem.

Since calligraphy, as well as the prose itself, is so important to Chinese literature, it was Wang Xizhi’s work, which excelled on both counts, from the Orchid Pavilion Gathering that made him so famous. (A Tang Dynasty-era copy of one of his original works sold in 2010 for $48 million.)

Today, tourists go to the Orchid Pavilion to walk around the lovely scenery and to practice their own calligraphy: paint brushes dipped in water await visitors, who practice their most beautiful calligraphy on black stone tablets as the sun evaporates the water. (Writing only to have it immediately disappear: the yin-yang theme of Shaoxing continues.)

Masayo and I practiced our writing – Masayo did well whereas I impressed myself by remembering how to write “Shaoxing” in Chinese. (I’ve been memorizing and then forgetting the Chinese script versions of each place we visit on this trip.)

I don’t know if you could call Shaoxing the birthplace of modern Chinese calligraphy, but that’s sort of what it has become in my mind. The water brush Orchid Pavilion experience, after walking around the rugged little canals and alleys of the town itself, certainly made it feel like we were witnessing centuries of Chinese literary history unfold all at once.

Fushan Park

Another day we went looking for the natural side of Shaoxing, and we found it in Fushan Park. In a hilly area in the center of town little paths and stone steps wind through the swaying green trees, and little pagodas and temples suddenly present themselves as you reach little dusty plateaus.

Walking around an unknown place like Fushan Park, lost but not really lost, is a pretty great way to get to know a town. The generally relaxed pace of Shaoxing makes having a big green park right in the middle of the city less unusual-seeming than you might think. If the hustle and bustle of big-time business isn’t the goal, then of course you’d want a park to go relax in, centrally located so everyone could enjoy it.

That’s what Fushan Park seemed like.

But you can’t see it all

Our time is up and we have to head out of Shaoxing further south in China. I have since found out on the internet that there are many other things to see in Shaoxing than what we were able to visit: temples, parks, hills, canals, and monuments. I bet any of them would have been great.

But we found what we found – and anyone else who visits Shaoxing for a brief time will choose their own experiences from the extensive menu. You naturally make your own memories when you travel, no matter what others do.

No two trips are alike; the things you miss help define your trip by throwing your actual experiences into greater relief. Thanks to Shaoxing for giving us a lesson into the yin-yang of the traveling life.

What sites have you “missed” when you visited a place?

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