Walking as Inquiry

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old Shanghai tradition

In and Out of Shanghai: Peaceful Life in Jing’an Park

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Elderly people were dancing the waltz elegantly, kids were playing soccer with smiles and laughter, and youngsters were taking picnics on the grass. It’s not something I saw at a tourist attraction, but just in the heart of Shanghai – the most prosperous city in China.  

It’s Jing’an Park which locates just opposite the famous Jing’an Temple. When I walked into this park, I felt like jumping out of the busy city life. Everything here is happening in a slow way, everyone in the park is enjoying his/her life in his/her own way. But just a stone’s throw away, people walking on the street are rushing to catch something in their life such as money, and family affairs. The significant contrast made me realize the separation between the park and the outside city. Walking here, you are able to get rid of your phone and internet and those small things you need to deal with every single day. Thus, you will make your life happens in the way you look forward to, which leads to inner peace.

The statue which is in the shape of rhinoceros represents strength, and moreover, good luck in traditional Chinese culture. As for me, it’s really interesting to connect it with the Jing’an Temple, which is only one street away from it, that these two objects both represent good luck but people always tend to buy a ticket to walk into the stately temple, light a few incense sticks to pray for good luck and happiness. Are things more valuable in formal places even if they have the same meaning? It’s hard to give an exact answer. With the question in my mind, I walked into this park, out of this city.

When I saw a few couples of elderly people dancing the waltz, I felt like I traveled along history to the last century when some parts of Shanghai were colonies of western countries. In that period, western culture spread over Shanghai for the first time and people in this city took learning skills like dancing waltz as pride. Also at that time, Shanghai started to be considered a symbol of elegant and western flavor. Dancing waltz instead of square dancing, which is popular all over China, made me intuitively feel the characteristic of Shanghai, the spirit of keeping elegant in the daily life of old-time Shanghai. 

Went inside the park, and I walked into a classical Chinese garden. When I followed the meandering path and walked through carefully arranged flowers and plants, I felt like I’m not in this prosperous city, but a quiet paradise. Just stood there, keeping silent, using my heart to feel the life in this peaceful park. I felt the slow flow of the river, the chirp of the birds, and the sound of the wind crossing the leaves. Additionally, the garden seems to be alive, everything here is living and I’m standing in a world built by stones and plants. 

Walking out of Jing’an Park, I was in this prosperous city again. Nowadays, almost everyone in Shanghai rushes to work, to make money, and to achieve their goals, so dancing elegantly with sunshine finding its way to the ground through leaves in a peaceful park is more than a luxury. Sometimes we achieve our goals, but the ambition in our hearts drives us to run for the next goal. Do we really need to achieve these goals? Why not choose the simple lifestyle, dancing in the sunshine? Like Nietzsche once wrote: “And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once” (Nietzsche, 1892). Immerse yourself and finding inner peace is much more important than just buying something expensive. Indeed, inner peace it’s the way that you can have an open heart to life. Moreover, it helps you eliminate negative influences. But to be honest, it’s a pity that, however,  you can hardly find a place that helps you achieve inner peace like Jing’an Park.

Shanghai | Flowers | Memory | Symbolization

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Symbolization of flowers

 Shanghai’s former French Concession was filled with flowers in early March.

In weddings, parties, chaos, funerals, cemeteries, etc. we encounter flowers. We encounter them so often that sometimes we just regard them as part of decoration and forget what they originally mean. As values and ideologies vary among cultures, flowers are assigned distinct symbolizations. In China, the  chrysanthemum symbolizes death and funerals, while the gardenia wishes happiness and love. 

Alora and I came out of Changshu Road metro station in a drizzling early March afternoon. The sky was foggy and gray as we set out to explore. I had explored the neighborhood many times with high school friends, but Alora, from Arizona, had never been.

We quickly abandoned the assigned idea of an “algorithmic walk” that our writing professor had assigned and headed to the intersection of Anfu Lu and Wulumuqi Lu. Because it was the crossing where the anti-Covid lockdown protests had happened and many Shanghai residents gathered that night with white flowers to pay tribute to victims of a recent deadly fire in Xinjiang. I wondered what it looked like after that. Surprisingly, despite some faint marks on the ground, everything seemed as normal as before. (I did not know whether I should be happy or sad seeing this view.)

The ancient and chic elements along Middle Wulumuqi Road

Blossoms in an old tricycle

In the past, the bluish-grey scene filled with plane trees and houses built in the mid-20th century always fascinated me. Now, it still did. In Shanghai’s former French Concession, one of several formerly foreign colonial zones,  so many chic stores were just on the side of old variety stores. This comparison would strike you more when you visit there.

As we were walking, a clump of bright colors across the street suddenly caught my eye among all the noisy traffic and people. When I got closer, the view became clearer and so delightful — there was an old tricycle full of colorful flowers behind a mottled gate.

A clump of colors behind the gate

To our surprise, the florist wasn’t even trying to sell his flower, instead, he was sitting in the corner behind the iron gate and relaxing. That was so unusual. Distinct from thousands of hundreds of flower shops with detailed marketing plans, he waited for regulars and luck. Both Alora and I bought a bunch of ranunculus asiaticus. In the front basket of his tricycle were some common tools for decorating flowers. Contrary to the general big, clean tables in most flower stores, the ground was his countertop. He was skilled in decorating flowers, and the way he wrapped up the flowers was fast and concise. However, his casual working attitude let us concerned about his income and living in this metropolis.

 The old florist was wrapping up the flowers on the ground near the tricycle.

When I asked him how many customers on average every day, he said “Well, that’s hard to say”. Considering the strong sense of festival rituals, the business would probably be better on Valentine’s Day. The response was still “Hard to say.” “We are nothing like flower stores except we all sell flowers, everything is uncertain for us,” he said with a little bitterness, “my income mainly comes from those old customers who prefer the relatively lower prices.” 

Old Shanghai Memory

His answer reminded me of a piece of memory about the last generation of flower grandmas in Shanghai. Though flower grandmas aren’t typically the same as florists with tricycles, both groups are fading away in this rapidly developing flower industry. In old Shanghai, many flower girls grouped near shopping malls, metro stations, and other crowded areas. The air around them was sweet with the fragrance of their hand-made gardenia bracelets and brooches. The stories of their life have been reported as miserable — most of them were trying to support their life by selling flowers day and night without ceasing. Nonetheless, they would usually say, “selling flowers in this life, you will be pretty after death (jinsheng mai hua, laishi piaoling 今生卖花，来世漂亮)”. How positive, poetic, and sad!

In the past, florists and flower grandmas might sit just alongside those ancient variety stores, working hard to earn their living. However, after no longer than 10 years, things have changed completely —- modernization in urban planning has driven away so many peddlers without a settled place from streets and alleyways. Till nowadays, only a fraction of florists and old variety stores managed to keep their business, while unfortunately, flower grandmas had been left in the memory forever. We can only keep the smell of gardenia, the words they said, and their image in our hearts.

Looking at a small bunch of gardenia in the tricycle, I was wondering whether this kind of destiny would also happen to the florists on tricycles in the near future, just like flower grandmas in Shanghai.

Flowers are not and should not be simply part of the decoration. In Shanghai, the flowers in protesters’ hands were a strong expressive tool to convey their emotions. The flowers in florists’ tricycles and grandmas’ baskets were the commodities they earn their life with. Flowers have so many diverse meanings and symbolizations, nonetheless, the most concrete, profound, and essential meaning of flowers is always related to their owners’ behavioral choices.

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