Tianjin: Modern and Medieval
The writer visits the eastern Chinese city and discovers a place
teeming with endearing duality
The twin binaries of glitzy urban sprawls (ShanghaiBeijing) and
bustling bazaars heaving with traditional Chinese food and fare are what spring
to mind when one conjures up images of China. However, as I navigated the
charming eastern city of Tianjin, I discovered a place teeming with diverse
experiences.
Cultural hubs, check. Spiffy malls, check. Atmospheric bazaars,
museums, artificially manufactured beaches...China's sixth largest city
straddles a zillion sights. Yet within an hour's drive out of its urban
whirligig, you're embraced by sylvan suburbs and a leafy countryside.
Perhaps it's this complex interplay between the quaint and the
chaotic, the modern and the medieval that makes Tianjin so alluring. I'm about
to find out as I begin my explorations smack dab in the city's heart -at the
historic Yangliuqing Woodblock Museum. This ain't any musty museum serving up
mummified exhibits in glass cases. The place offers a fascinating peek into the
art of woodblock printing, one of China's most representative folk art genres.
The museum showcases woodblock prints whose provenance can be
traced back to the Ming dynasty. Kept in a temperature-controlled environment,
and characterised by high production values -meticulous tracing, carving,
printing, painting -these artworks command a premium in the country.
I pore over the cherubic silhouettes of artist Soo Young, 35, who
has been painting at the museum for over two years. Hewing to tradition, her
work is characterised by festive content and plump and symmetrical figures.“A
print usually takes about four days to a fortnight to complete,“ Soo tells me.
“We portray people's daily lives and chronicle local customs.“
I nod sagely while taking in the lady's bright and harmonious
figures which draw from a groundswell of Chinese historical myths and legends.
Some even bear a startling resemblance to Indian historical figures -Krishna
playing with his butter buddies, Bhaskahsura, the demon slaying people... If
the Yangliuqing Woodblock Museum is quintessentially oriental, the Five Avenue
Area is its antithesis. It spells tony Europe with a capital `E'. Accoutred
with branded fashion stores, lifestyle boutiques and ne on-lit plazas, the
avenue seduces you into burning up your credit cards faster than you could say
Xi Jinping. Once populated by Chi nese celebrities, the area today features
over 2,000 well-maintained gardenstyle buildings. Festooned carriages stationed
at regular intervals wait to take punters on a whirl imbuing the surroundings
with more charm.
“Nee hao,“ the mellifluous voice of a lady hawker wafts towards me
as I turn into an alley within the Five Avenue area. This is `food street'
displaying an ambitious repertoire of snacks mounted on skewers, dry crackers,
dim sum, crispy scorpion, fried snake, corn on the cob, roasted vegetables,
glazed fruit, fried jianbing, youtiao, Chinese meatballs, dumplings...I greet
the hawker back and watch her skewer a scorpion onto a metallic rod after
basting it with a fierylooking sauce! Clearly, this place ain't for the
pusillanimous.
Quail eggs, sold ubiquitously in China, are also a popular street
food, their preparation making for riveting theatre. The hawker first breaks
the pint-sized egg onto a hot and unctuous metallic tray lined with multiple
crevices and skewers. Nestling thus, the egg bubbles and sizzles until it
acquires a crispy gossamer gold fringe. After a while, it is disengaged from
the tray and served piping hot on skewers. Bite into this and a supernova of
flavours burst on your palate, the accompanying sauces intensifying the party
in your mouth.
The Dual Core
Tianjin's cuisine showcases the essence of Chinese cooking,
seamlessly blending sweet, salty and tangy flavours; boiling, stewing,
braising, and simmering. Meat is stewed in its own juices, the dishes fresh,
tender, fragrant and rich, either crispy or soft, but never greasy.Seasoning is
invariably perfect, never over or underdone, and the meat falls easily off the
bones.
Local cuisine has its own inflections, going further in lightness
-especially in using even less oil -and sweetness. The region leverages the
best available freshwater carp, eels, shrimps and crabs, and a plethora of
local produce, vegetables and fruits. Bamboo shoots are a delicacy, stewed
often in peanut oil immediately upon being unearthed and served fresh and
tender. Also a must-try is the braised soy sauce duck. The bird is marinated in
a secret soy sauce, pressed with a heavy stone overnight, then dried and cooked
to produce meat permeated with the sweetness of the soy. To die for! In keeping
with its dual core, Tianjin is splintered into the old city and the Binhai New
Area, the latter hosting over 400 Fortune 500 companies. The area also offers a
thriving ecosystem for commerce and industry spiked with entertainment hubs
such as the bustling Tianjin Binhai Aircraft Carrier Theme Park. The park
houses a defence and technology museum alongside cafes that radiate enough
kinetic energy to power a ship.
Ancient Cultural Street is where you experience a sensory overload
of smells, sights and sounds. Its kiosks peddle everything from folksy
souvenirs to porcelain vases, snacks, clothes, dried herbs and condiments to
bric-a-brac. Ladies hawking beaded jewellery carry on with their craft with a
Zen-like composure, beading stunning necklaces, keeping an eye on their infants
and serving meals to family all at the same time! “N láizì yìndù?“, a lady hawker
is keen to know if I'm from India. I acknowledge with a “Shì de“ and rifle
through her wares, feigning interest in chunky jewellery. This is a fascinating
medieval bazaar which also hosts museums, antique stores and public buildings.
Amidst this heavy duty commerce stands the exquisite Mazu temple,
an incongruity but one that adds to the area's allure. Devotees beaver in and
out of its premises, unmindful of the melee surrounding the temple, carrying
incense sticks which suffuse the air with a cloying smell.
One nippy night, I cruised on the glutinous Haihe River which
girdles Tianjin as a bejewelled belt would a fashionista's slim waist. The
river is the pivot around which the city seems to flow. It is the city's
economic lifeline, its wining and dining playground and a social hub drawing
crowds into its overtly commercial vortex.
As the yacht navigated the waters, I feasted on a glittering
montage of the city's night skyline ablaze with fluorescent skyscrapers,
ultramodern galleries, theatres and malls. Verdant parks and historic
architecture add yet another dimension to this riverside kaleidoscope. But
perhaps the most salubrious are the numerous bridges which crisscross the river
-Jiefang Bridge, Dagu, Bei'an, Jingbu and Shizilin -each flaunting a different
architectural style.
The riverside LED-lit Tianjin Eye -modelled on the London one -is
worth braving a vertigo attack for, its 48 air-conditioned glass cubicles
proffering a breathtaking 360-degree view of the city. The structure is
dramatic not only in scale, but also because it is the only wheel in the world
built as part of a bridge. Ergo, it bestows on intrepid punters all the thrills
and chills of the ride of a 120-meter high contraption, the equivalent of a
35-storey skyscraper.
Never Far from Tea
Shopping anyone? Cosseted along Haihe are themed shopping zones
-Wenhua Street and the Italianstyle town -which register a high footfall and
guarantee to fulfil all your touristy shopping needs. Wenhua Street, which has
been in existence for nearly a century, proffers old classic books, folk and
traditional crafts, old-style Chinese calendar paintings, mud sculptures and
brick carvings by well-renowned artisans.
The “Italian-style town“ on the east bank of the Haihe transports
one to a Tuscan marketplace even though its moniker sounds like a cheap plastic
reconstruction's.Walking on its cobblestoned pathways steeped in colonial
history, I'm engulfed pronto by Italian-style trattorias, cafes, atmospheric
eateries with colourful awnings...A small cobbled circle anointed by a stunning
Roman pillar topped off by a mythic winged creature adds European charm to the
area. Exquisite villas and a stunning Gothic design (once presumably a church)
mark a foil to the gigantic 50-storey glass faced skyscraper that dominates the
scene.
If you're in Tianjin, you're never far from tea. Or its commerce.
Teadrinking has evolved into a rich subculture here spurred by the fame of the
local green tea of which there are a gazillion varieties. Price tags can
ratchet up into the stratosphere. “The one I'm serving you today,“ says Shing
Lu, the coiffed owner of a tea house sited in a byzantine lane within the
ancient bazaar, is pegged at $2,000 per kilo.“ I choke -rather inelegantly
-into my porcelain tea cup as I digest this nugget of information. Meanwhile,
Lu proceeds to serve a line-up of other teas, one more subtle (and expensive, I
dare add) than the other. Their prohibitive prices notwithstanding, tea houses
have not only survived the onslaught of modernity in Tianjin but are a thriving
business. Serviced by well-informed waitresses, many of who possess a five-year
degree in tea making, these vibrant dens are an ode to the city's endearing
duality.
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Neeta Lal
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ETM 7JUN15
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