Colors of Zhejiang

I stood still for a moment, breathing heavily and dripping sweat like I was in DC sometime in July. I turned in a slow circle, straining to see through the trees at the city sprawled below Jinshang Park somewhere around the center of Wenzhou. I knew what shot I was looking for, and just needed the right break in the trees to get it. I held my camera out away from my body, the only way to keep the sweat from running down my arms and onto the lens. I smelled like garlic.

After accidentally hiking way further than I'd anticipated, I was significantly higher than the city. All around me were plants and trees native to Zhejiang province and China in general: Maidenhair trees, bamboo, chestnuts, ferns, palm trees. I should probably have known more of them by name… but that ship has sailed. I brushed them all aside as I walked slowly through the brush at the edge of the clearing, looking through my lens for that one photo.

A breeze tried desperately to keep me cool, but it wasn’t enough. The only other hiker, an old man, looked at me like everybody does right before they get shot by John McLane in Die Hard. I couldn’t get the frame I wanted, and there wasn’t anywhere higher to climb nearby even if I’d had the energy. I took a few I was unhappy with and headed down the stairs on the far side of where I’d come up. I needed to find AC. Fast.

Wenzhou at dusk.

I love botanical gardens. There’s no better way to put it. They’re an oasis of calm among chaos – especially in places like DC. I like them for writing, for dates, for learning, for taking photos. This had to be the weirdest, least appropriately named botanical garden anywhere in the world. It was, quite literally, a forest. I didn’t see a single greenhouse, but I did see a QR code on every tree – something extremely popular in China. I have two working theories: 1) I got lost and missed the actual garden or 2) the English translation on Apple Maps was just bad. While the first is definitely possible, the second feels more likely.

After leaving the park, I ducked into an alley, scaring a crew of no-good cats, and turned into the apartment block where I was staying. I liked being a part of a Chinese city and the sounds normal life chorused around me as I got closer to my floor. While initially the air quality had been good enough to ventilate the apartment, today’s recommendation: mask. I closed up the windows that I’d left open. The haze had become more visible throughout the afternoon, making the city look like a Middle Eastern hookah bar without any ventilation.

I looked out the last window before closing it at the typical Chinese apartments around mine: barred windows, grey concrete, hazy city backdrop, laundry hanging, and... more greenery. Window planters, rooftop gardens, and scraggly trees found solace in the few spaces uninhabited by any of the eight million people here.

Eleventh floor planters

When I’d gotten off the high-speed train in Wenzhou the crowd had surged around me, carrying me forward. There were black-haired heads filling the hallway, everyone pushing to get home for the holiday. I did what any rational person would do: started pushing back. I elbowed my way onto a crowded 24 bus headed for the city center. The whole city was crowded, in all actuality, for the week-long break. We drove over bridges, past temples, through a park, all while seeing an endless supply of trees; nature wasn’t something my pre-China self hadn’t really thought about. I figured every major city looked like a scene from Judge Dredd. My understanding of Chinese cities was changing before my eyes, with every turn of that poorly maintained bus, like the cities themselves in recent years.

After closing up my place, I searched for my afternoon cup of coffee. The sun was quickly sliding lower in the October sky and the green spaces became more evident when lit up in orange — and more clearly in contrast with the open-front workshops and factories that lined the street I was on. This part of the city was quieter than in and around my apartment, and there was no pushing involved.

As the sun faded entirely, it became increasingly evident that pollution hung low over the city. The stars were hidden and the lights from the buildings and innumerable cars reflected off the haze. I was hungry but didn’t feel like PM2.5 for dinner so I stepped into a noodle shop. Slurping loudly, I thought about the tiered subsidence farming that covered the land outside my apartment back in Qingtian. It seemed only to be contained by the construction site that it butted up against. The two seem worlds apart, something the academics might call juxtaposition. I’d like to stick Wendell Berry in the middle and see what he says.

Hidden temple. Took me ages to hike down a steep incline to get this photo.

The same thing, the academics might say, goes for China in general: wedged between nature and progress, the union a strange one. Parts look like Robinson Crusoe's island, while others look like cities in Star Wars. A lot are some combination of the two. The situation isn’t one I’m an expert on, and there are others better suited to write about it, but seeing a farmer working a tiny plot on the side of a highway – no space gets wasted here – while his wife filmed a video of him on a smart phone summed it up in my mind.

That said, the natural beauty here, especially in remote Zhejiang province, is something I could not have imagined. Several weeks ago, I went out with a photography crew at 4:30am to take photos of the sunrise. A few house lights broke the expense of black on the mountainside as we drove up a narrow road. Above us, the outline of the topmost trees became barely visible as the morning light struggled against the black to come into existence and climb over the mountains into our valley.

We entered a forest preserve. The road dropped to a single lane and our van came to a crawl, nobody able to see much beyond the headlights. We spotted a place to start hiking up the mountain. Phone lights came on and the only sound was the thumping of shoes on stone as we started trekking. I still saw more stars than light as it hit 5am.

At the top, we couldn’t find a good spot, the same problem I had in Wenzhou. Forced to return to the van, now sweating, we had to hurry: the sky was lightening. No sun yet, but she was coming. We were getting higher, though, with every bend in the road. The city lay far beneath us. We were surrounded by mountains: blue-grey expanses that stretched the length of the horizon, lying still, sleeping, like the giant beasts they were formed of.

As if challenging me to appropriately write the scene, a sliver of a moon now peaked out behind a terraced roof as we rounded a bend. Sensory overload. The sky was getting brighter and the van had a frantic energy, the desperation to capture these scenes increasingly palpable as our driver sped around corners and past elderly people walking.

Uncle Leng issued more commands to the driver. The van smelled like sweat. The valley on our western side lay dark, untouched by the light that seeped, crawled, and stole from the night on our eastern side as it expanded its domain. We continued to climb. Rice paddies on terraced hillsides became clear enough to see now. The driver slammed on the brakes. I was thrown forward.

Early morning light.

We found it. One of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever experienced. A bird flapped lazily through the sky, just above miles of ridged rice paddies, which rose to a V where two mountains met in the distance. Trees stood dark against a foggy blue mountainside. The whole damn nine yards. Nowhere to film a Judge Dredd remake here. The photos made up for missing out in Wenzhou, but none could truly do this scene justice.

We stood still for a moment, silent, in awe. Then, almost in sync, everyone's camera clicked like crazy.