Walking tour of Tangjia

At the end of September, on a hot and sunny Saturday, Mike and I joined two dozen faculty and staff on a walking tour of our neighborhood, which is called Tangjia. Our group contained a mix people from the U.S.A., Hong Kong, India, Israel, and China. Three Chinese college students, who had studied museums, accompanied us to be our tour guides. With shade umbrellas and water bottles in hand, we began our walk outside our apartment complex. We walked by a banana farm, turned down a dirt pathway, and soon were at the entrance to Tang Jia Wan Park. Shaoyi Tang was born in 1862 and became the first prime minister of China in 1912. At age 12 he was sent to America to study, where he graduated from Columbia University at age 19. Upon returning to China he became active in national politics, trying to bring ideals of western democracy to his country. In 1921 he opened his gardens to the public and in 2008 his home was opened as a museum.

His gardens are a lovely park, with old decaying buildings set among shade trees and stone sculptures. We paid our 20 yuan entrance fee ($3) and walked through the gate where we were immediately struck by the beauty of proportion and harmony in the layout of the grounds. Some of the highlights include:

A 9-corner bridge recently built across a pond near the entrance. The nine corners make it difficult for evil spirits to enter the park.

Nine corner bridge

An old two-story observatory with an open area on the roof for looking directly at the night sky. Tang loved to come here with varying combinations of his 17 children and three wives.

A 20-foot tall, brick structure with five stories – a home for Tang’s carrier pigeons. Each room had stone archways for the birds to enter.

Huge old Banyan trees. These have roots that hang down from the branches to support a wide canopy.

Banyan tree

Bamboo groves with delicate golden stalks and leechee trees with gnarled trunks shading the pathways.

Entrances to buildings flanked by beautiful panels of calligraphy. The words welcomed visitors and proclaimed the wisdom of preserving beauty.

As we made our way through the park, looking at the buildings and trees, our Chinese student guides tried to tell us about the history of the Tang family and the garden. One student would begin to speak, stumble on a word he or she couldn't remember in English, another student would fill in the word and then all three of them would argue in Chinese about the proper word. We couldn't follow the complete train of thought; we could only catch a fact here and there. But the students were always willing to join a camera shot.

After about an hour of exploring the park, we left the grounds and hiked through narrow city streets to a small alleyway that led to the actual home of Tang. The lane that led to the home was a small stone passageway, no more than 6 feet across, with entrances to people's small houses radiating from it.

Street leading to Tang's house

At Tang’s home we met two Chinese UIC professors sitting under a shade tree in the front yard with a small old Chinese man. He was no more than 4 feet 10 inches tall, with no teeth, no hair, a hearing aid, and dressed in a blue T-shirt and purple paisley pajama pants. This 86-year old man, with bright sparkling eyes, and a spring to his step, was the great-grandson of Tang. He gave us a tour of the building, showing us the rooms and telling us the story of the Tang family. On one wall, we saw a photograph of him as a 4-year old boy with his mother and sister, dressed in western clothing in 1927. His mother was Chinese-American, and his grandmother was Chinese-British, so he spoke English quite well. He lived his whole life in China, which meant that during the Cultural Revolution he spent many years in prison. His crime was having a mother from the west. Most of his relatives fled to Taiwan or the U.S.A.

UIC student, Tang's great grandson, 2 UIC professors

During the Land Reform at the beginning of Communist Rule, the Tang house was taken over by the government and given to peasants. All of the original furniture disappeared during this time. During the Cultural Revolution the beautiful artwork carved in stone along the upper part of the walls was destroyed. The museum curators have found period furniture to put in the house so visitors can see what it was like.

Destroyed artwork

From the Tang house we walked through many small narrow streets of Tangjia in search of a temple. Impressions from this walk include a woman standing in the street, potato and peeler in hand, staring at the foreigners' parade; four sun wrinkled men playing mah jong in small dark room; a shop with two red barber chairs in front of a mottled mirror; tiny shops with bottles of soda, water, sweet fruit drinks, and junk food; a man with a power saw, cutting tree trunks; a wedding car decorated with a flower wreath and red bows; bicycles everywhere; a child sitting on a grandma's lap; laundry hanging out every window; motorcycles parked by doorways.

Wedding car

Soon we were at the temple, an old structure with one entrance leading to a Buddhist altar and another to a Daoist shrine. As we entered we passed a wooden screen which kept out the distraction of the street. Behind the screen was a raised table with sand for lighting incense sticks. Just as Catholics dip their hands in a fountain of holy water upon entering the sanctuary, here one lit incense.

Daoist Temple

Behind the temple we saw a huge banyan tree with many red ribbons tied to it, each symbolizing an answered prayer. Two dozen bonsai trees were in pots on small tables. Local retired people tended to the trees.

The tour ended with a traditional Chinese meal at a local restaurant. The tables were outside under a tin roof, while the kitchen was inside the ramshackle building. The Chinese speakers amongst us ordered the food – white fish, cuttle fish, tofu, rapeseed vegetables, chicken, lotus root, taro root, duck. We ended our excursion in Chinese fashion – with great food and good conversation.

Restaurant in Tangjia