Thoughts on China

NOTE: Sorry for the slow load, but I’m including quite a few pictures today. The rest are here… Also, I finally got the picture of the lobby which I’ve added to the previous post.

Today, I went teapot shopping. As some of you know, I really like Chinese tea and Yixing teapots (teapot is 茶壶, or cháhú, in Chinese). I started off the day going to the Yixing Ceramics Museum, to make sure I would know what high quality would look like. There are a number of workshops inside the gate that leads to the museum and they had people working on making teapots in the same place they sold them. These were generally higher quality pieces, with higher prices than you would find across the street at what I’ll call the “teapot bazaar”. My plan was to look through a ton of shops, not buying anything, but noting what I liked. Then, I’d come back and buy from the places I liked best.

After going through quite a few of the nicer shops, I went across the street. In the Lonely Planet, it talks about prices varying widely and states that “Some say that unless you are buying a teapot made by a well-known artist, don’t pay more than Y30 ( now $4, but $3.75 when the guidebook was published). I beg to differ. There are various qualities to consider in a teapot: 1) the quality of the workmanship (i.e., is the lid nicely fitted, etc.) 2) the quality of the clay (is it a nice sheen, or does it appear dull? If it is shiny, is it because of the clay, or does it appear that some kind of shine was put on artificially? 3) The detail (and quality of the detail) that goes into the scenes/calligraphy on the side of the teapot.

Well, after going through about 40 stores with all of the business cards stuffed in my pockets, I couldn’t remember what I saw where. Besides that, it was already 2:00PM and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet… As I walked away from the teapot bazaar, there were cries of protest from vendors that I had told I was just looking and I’d buy after I finished looking. These were quickly squelched, however, when I explained, “我去午饭” (“WÇ’ qù wÇ”fàn”, or “I’m going to eat lunch!”). If there’s one thing every Chinese understands, it’s that when you’re hungry, you should eat!

Now, the only problem was where to eat, as I hadn’t seen a restaurant in a while (which is unusual in China). All you can find in this vicinity are teapot shops! So, I asked a couple people and the second one was a lady who pointed in a general direction. When I looked puzzled, she told me to follow her (in Chinese, of course), and she walked me to what seemed to be the only restaurant in the entire area. There were three tables lined up on the left wall and the kitchen was on the right side of the aisle, as you can see in the background of this photo:

The proprietor asked me what I wanted to eat by showing me what she had available. There were quite a few things I didn’t really recognize (and I really wasn’t in the mood to try something I didn’t recognize, since I was hungry and wanted something I knew I would eat), so, there were some chickens and I pointed to them. The head and feet must have been tucked under the bird, because, as you can see, they did show up in the finished product

This time, I didn’t try to eat them… She chopped up the chicken and tossed it around in a wok with some cilantro, dry roasted peanuts and a sauce she made up that was really tasty! I had that with some rice and soup she delivered a little later and had a good meal for Y18 (about $2.40).

Then, it was about 3:00PM and time to get serious about teapot buying. Well, most of the teapots across the street from the museum were of much lower quality than the shops inside the museum compound. Like the silk paintings in Suzhou (which I didn’t get, because the low quality of the affordable ones in the street market and the high price of the ones in the museums there), I was afraid I might be at an impass. But, I went to the shops inside the museum compound to see what I could find. The first place I stopped, I had been to in the morning. She must have been expecting me to buy something, since I came back. But the teapots I liked were about Y1500 ($200) and were made to look like rattan baskets and, looking closely, I detected at least one flaw in each one. So, I thanked her and went on. The next shop had a small teapot that I thought was cool looking and of good quality. She wanted only Y200 ($26.67) for it, so I got it.

I ended up going to a few shops and I found several small teapots that I really liked and were high quality. I got all of them for Y200, except one for Y300. I wanted to get one of the really expensive ones, because they were really beautiful, but I couldn’t really justify it. At the last teapot shop, after I bought the teapot for Y200, the gentlemen asked me if I wanted to drink some tea and I said “好的” or “HÇŽode”, which means “OK.” So, he got a fairly small brick of Pu’erh, since I had told him earlier when I was in his shop that I liked that. He didn’t have a pu’erh knife and had quite a time trying to get some off of the brick to put into the teapot.

Well, to make a long story short, he said he really didn’t like that pu’erh and gave me the brick. Then his apprentice gave me two teacups to go along with the pot. So, they were very nice!

I was all set to go, when I saw one more shop that I had been to earlier and went in to have a look. I had 5 teapots by this time and was about ready to call it a day. The lady in this shop was very nice and didn’t offer to sell me anything (another difference between the vendors in the museum compound and those from across the street).

We had a nice conversation about, well, what else…teapots! She seemed impressed that I had learned some Chinese and asked what I had bought. So, one by one, we took out what I had bought and she guessed the price on each one…exactly! To each one, she said “不太贵”, or Bù tài guì” (which means “Not very expensive.”, or, in other words, “You didn’t get ripped off!”. Then she got to one, which I bought as a second pot at one shop because I had bought one for Y300 and I kind of felt bad for the apprentice, so I bought one of hers for Y200. The lady guessed Y150 on that one and said, “太贵”.

It was nice to get an honest appraisal from a knowledgeable person, but she went far beyond that. There were a couple of pots that she didn’t like the packaging on and substituted much better packaging from her own store (for free). I felt like this type of integrity and generosity deserved to be rewarded, so, I thought, I’d buy one more teapot! The one I had looked at in her shop that morning was Y1500 ($200). It was a beautiful teapot, but after telling her that I wanted to buy a teapot from her for all that she had just done, she picked out five Y200 ones and two Y300 ones to choose from. At this point, I thought to myself, I really wanted to get an extraordinary pot, and the one I really wanted was there, and I was half way around the world from my home and wouldn’t be here again…so, after examining the teapots she set out, I went to the one I had looked at in the morning and told her I’d like to buy it.

Well, the day didn’t end there. She packaged it up beautifully, in a silk wrapper and a hardwood box. She then asked if I would like some tea, to which I said “谢谢”. She explained how to do a tea ceremony with some 铁观音 (tiÄ›GuānyÄ«n, a type of oolong tea). After that, she made a phone call to her husband, who made the pot, and asked if I wanted to come to their house for dinner. So, she closed up the shop and we walked to her house (we actually got a ride part of the way, which she paid for). At her house, I met her husband, who had his studio set up there. Their daughter was home from Suzhou University (the same place the girl I met on the bus to Yixing was attending). So, the four of us sat down to dinner, which included: yes, chicken, but also a type of dofu which I really liked, some mushrooms in a really nice sauce, some pig’s ears, which I have to admit, I wasn’t overly fond of, a type of green vegetable, some boiled nuts which looked to me like big acorns and, to wash it down, a fortified wine that she had in a huge jar with a lot of a type of fruit that had the outer texture of a kiwi, but were smaller and rounder. That stuff was potent! I’m glad I only had one small glass, or I wouldn’t need any aqua dots (a reference to Ann’s comment on another post, if you didn’t see it)!

After dinner, I watched her husband work for a while. I found out he is 50 years old and has been making teapots for over 20 years. One of his designs won an honorable mention at a teapot competition in California and sold for $3500.

We took some pictures and their daughter presented me with a teapot that she wanted to give me. That was nice!

I realize that they don’t make that big a sale everyday, but she had already shown me that she was a nice person before I bought it. Time and again, I have been shown a very kind and caring side of the Chinese culture that is really nice to see!

Finally, her husband walked me back to the hotel and I called it a night, finally getting the picture of the large teapot in the lobby. I had a thoroughly memorable day of teapot buying in Yixing…tomorrow, it’s off to the bamboo forest of Anji…