Students shop at Lao Jie, or Old Street, in Tuangxi in Huangshan. Many of the restored houses date back to the Ming Dynasty and now serve as souvenir shops, antique dealers and restaurants. (Photo credit: Curtis Chan)
By Kate Waskiw
Yesterday after breakfast at the hotel everyone piled on to the bus. Dr. Wu then informed us that we were going to the best preserved Ming Dynasty street, the Lao Jie or Old Street, in all of China located in Tuangxi. I myself was very intrigued because I have a image of what ancient China looked like, mainly from watching Mulan as a child (and teenager…and college student….). We have seen many old buildings so far like the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, and Temple of Heaven, but these were all built for the emperor so they all had the same designs and color schemes. As we got off the bus, I hoped to see small houses and stores crammed together with roofs that curved up at the corners.
When we exited the bus everyone quickly became confused. The street we began walking down had neon signs above stores, a paved street, and new construction happening. That was definitely not what we had envisioned. Just we some of us began to question if Dr. Wu had gotten the address wrong we came to a cross section and instantly knew we had stumbled onto an ancient Chinese street. Looking left and right down the street, the small road was made by large stones with one to two story builds on either side pushed up against each other. I was thrilled to look up and see that the corners of the roofs did curve up elaborately just as I envisioned.
With the time that was given we began to wonder the street. I think I speak for everyone when I say that this was probably the best shopping excursion we have had. The stores here were very nice and the best part was the owners did not stand over us like hawks constantly asking if we liked an object and how much it costed. I was immediately drawn to the tea shop on the corner.
Tea in this region is highly prized because there is no pollution in the area. They grow tea on the mountain tops were the elevation is just right (I was informed that there is even a special tea that only monkeys pick because it is too high for the pickets to reach). The local tea is a red tea that I have never heard of, so naturally I bought some. Like a kid in a candy store I went crazy and ended up with some oolong and green tea as well. The owner even brewed us some tea to sample. After that, we wandered further to look at the other shops. There were so many calligraphy shops, jade shops, tea shops, and random triket stores everywhere. Everyone had a relaxing morning, walking around, shopping, and looking at different things.
To top off the morning we went to a restaurant on one end of the street. My table sent up Victor to order for us, and he did not disappoint. We had noodles, delicious chicken, beef with vegetables, sticky rice with pork, and pigs feet. We also had these amazing pork (we really like pork) dumplings that not only had the meat filling but also broth making it a soup dumpling. All in all probably one of my favorite meals here.
The rest of the day included going to Dr. Wu’s brother’s house and going to a tea museum. We went to his brother’s house to tour a Chinese family home and also watch a documentary on the Hangzhou Bay Bridge that we drove over a few days ago (all the problems the engineers encountered were astonishing, but we saw their end creation). The tea museum was also very interesting and we even got to have a tea tasting which was great. To finish the day we toured an old communist command center and had a large dinner consisting of all the local delacacies. One dish was a fish whose directly translated name was “smelly fish”… and boy did it live up to its name. All in all a great day!