Lanterns in Yu Gardens

 In the first week after the New Year holiday, I had to go down to Shanghai for an overnight business trip.  This was on Tuesday, when the last of the fireworks had finished.  As it turned out, our hotel was not but 10 minutes walking from Yu Gardens.

 Yu Gardens, or Yu Yuan, is one of the prime tourist spots in Shanghai. They are just a few minutes walk from the Bund, which is famous for historic buildings and spectular views of the PuDong skyscrapers.  And just a few minutes more to walk to the legendary shopping on Nanjing Road, where every famous designer brand in the world can be had in both authentic and counterfeit versions.   The origin of the gardens dates back some 400 years, so it, too, is authentic to a point.  But like many tourist spots in Shanghai, it has been restored such that it is a caricature of Chinese culture....it could easily be a pavilion in Epcot Center.  The buildings and garden spaces are almost too beautiful and too perfect.

 Yu Gardens is also known for its colorful displays for the lantern day of the Spring Festival.   The photos here give a sampling.  I took a walk down to the park at about 7:00 am in the morning, before going to work, and snapped these.  As you can see, many of the "lanterns" look much like floats in parade.  No pun intended, but many of them were "floating" the waters in Yu Gardens.  The surrounding streets and alleyways were all decorated with more traditional lanterns, which were strung between buildings like street lights.  It was all very colorful.

 But like everything else in Yu Gardens, it felt like Chinese culture served up for the Western palate. About as authentic as General Tsao's Chicken or a fortune cookie.  But authentic or not, it was pretty to see.

 In Suzhou, they also observed the lantern festival on the south side of the old city on the 15th day of New Year, as is tradition.  Or so we heard.  Sad to say, but Theresa and I decided not to venture out.  It was raining cats and dogs and chilling-to-the-bone cold.  Our sense of adventure only goes so far.

 Sadly, I have more photo's than I can fill between with text.

 So bear with me to the next paragraph.

 And I will tell you that the most intriguing thing in Yu Gardens at 7:30 in the morning is not the lantern festival but the people.  The spaces near the entrance, near the dragon lantern, were filled with young people, mostly men in their 20s and 30's, playing badminton.  Deeper inside the park, the spaces were filled with older folks practicing their Tai Chi.  The photo below shows a few practicing the traditional forms of Tai Chi.  In other areas, there were people practicing forms that incorporated fans and swords.  I'm pretty sure that these folks were not paid by the Chamber of Commerce to come out in the morning.  I'm a sucker for authenticity.

 The last photo, below, is one of the more intriguing things I saw that morning.  The woman, with her back to you, is smacking her finger tips against the tree as part of her morning exercise.  It's like the Bruce Lee biographies, where you see him pounding his hands and feet against boards and rocks to build strength and increase the tolerance to pain.  This woman was no Bruce Lee....but she stood there for half an hour, pounding the tree with her hands.  If you look closely, the bark of the tree has been worn to a lighter shade by the constant abuse.