SHANGHAI In a swish of flowing black changshan robes, the master enters the room, and the impatient taptapping of my foot is stilled as if by some enchantment. Wordlessly, he makes jasmine tea, pours it into tiny ceramic cups and sits, in balletic posture, to unfurl a fabric roll harbouring Lilliputian brass implements: brush, tongs and razorsharp spatula. Beside the tools sit clay bowls of aromatic powder, urns of fine white ash and brass stencils cut in lotusflower shapes — the raw materials of my ‘incense appreciation’ lesson. Mirroring my teacher’s movements, I place a stencil on the ash and pat out the powder on top: another tap-tap, only calmer this time. Using my spatula I tidy the edges: a quieter swish. As I focus on sweeping up the fine, heady dust, the master speaks mellifluously about this ritual — thousands of years old — performed to heal, tell time, smoke away evil or, as today, simply help us mellow out. Then we lift our templates to reveal incense patterns that resemble flourishes on a cappuccino. We light the ends, and watch the embers smoulder, like cartoon TNT in slow-mo. In what seems like 10 minutes of deep concentration and deeper breathing, our hour flies by. Is this what they call... Zen? I was beyond excited for the bigger, taller, faster, everything-now rhythm of Shanghai, the organised chaos of 26 million strivers. For the better part of a week, I’ve shopped the neon megastores of Nanjing Road, drank in lounges 100m higher than London’s Shard. I’ve battled sharp-elbowed tourists on the sacred ‘zigzag bridge’ to photograph the ancient temples of Yu Garden. I’ve even taken part in the latest rite of passage: a fix of nitrogen-infused tea in a throbbing 2,694sq m rotunda — one of the biggest Starbucks in the world. Mission accomplished. But if I carry on this way any longer I’ll need a holiday from my holiday. What’s required for the next few days is some stillness, some tranquillity, some peace and quiet and contemplation, and breathing out. Some serene ancient yin to the city’s hectic modern yang. And Nanshufang, this soft-lit school of ‘scholarly arts’ — tea ceremonies, flower-arranging, calligraphy and more join incense on the curriculum — is the perfect place to start. While outside, in the Xintiandi neighbourhood, shoppers dash around trendy trainer shops tucked into traditional grey-brick shikumen houses, I bend over to inhale the fragrant scent of a Qing-style table in historic Chinese nanmu wood, while a teacher and student pluck their zither-like guqins in the background. ‘The speed of life is taking its toll,’ explains the teacher. ‘People are reacting to the pressure by returning to Confucianism and Buddhism, exchanging material values for culture, slowing down.’ That may be true, but my blood pressure shoots right up again as soon as I leave. Dinner’s in an hour at a restaurant deep in the former French Concession — the southwest quarter of the city cordoned off by French occupiers in the 19th century — but crossing Xintiandi requires the agility of a street dancer. My moves aren’t up to it, so I hop in a taxi, thinking it will be more relaxing. It’s not. Hurtling westward, I slide down in my seat to take in the sheer height of the new towers edging the French colonists’ old haunt, as my driver ‘ THE LANDSCAPE UNFOLDS LIKE A FILM SET AFTER THE DIRECTOR HAS WRAPPED AND THE CAST HAS LEFT FOR THE DAY ’ veers around buzzing swarms of electric scooters and maverick pedestrians with the skill of a video-game champion. This is edge-of-the-seat stuff, until, at the marvellously named Wulumuqi Road, the traffic grinds to a hooting, honking halt. The cabbie taps the long nail of his pinkie against the wheel. ‘Ni ho hala mia wan wo ga lai!’ he says. Or something of the sort. Surely he’s not talking to me, I think, until he repeats himself with the assurance of an American tourist expecting everyone to speak his language. My stress levels ratchet up further. Rather than mangle words plucked from my Chinese phrasebook, I pay the fare on the meter and flee, nearly colliding with a bicycle cart carrying bananas, as he continues to speak in my direction. At first, the pavements teem as much as the tarmac. In narrow shops wide open to the street, fishmongers sink their nets deep into tanks to pull out wriggling ‘mitten crabs’ with claws encircled by fuzz, like tiny fur muffs, as I dodge queues of clocked-off workers buying buns from bamboo steamers. This is not the tranquil French Concession I’m craving right now. But as I turn into a side street, suddenly the scene fades — until the only sound is the swaying branches of the mature plane trees forming a canopy overhead. Clay-roofed villas sit back from sepiatoned walls, the last light of the day dappling the stucco. It’s no wonder the French clung on to this little enclave of quiet for nearly a century. The landscape unfolds like a film set after the director has wrapped and the cast has left for the day. Here and there a window glows with a scene: a smocked barber wielding electric shears, or a candlelit bar stocked with French imports. A rusty bicycle leans like a prop against a dress shop. Passing an Art Deco manor retrofitted with wires and satellite dishes, I feel a drop of water. In an upstairs window, an old lady pins a pair of large white pants to a wire rack jutting out over the street. She adds a bright pink shirt, then unfurls a patterned bedsheet 54 worldtravellermagazine.com
XXXXXXXXXXXXX These pages, clockwise from top left: Food cooks in traditional bamboo steamers; tai chi at sunrise; neon advertisements illuminate the night sky; colourful pavilions at Yu Garden; statuettes of terracotta warriors on sale at a tourist market worldtravellermagazine.com 55
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