Michael Linn is a writer and teacher from Oxfordshire in England. He has written a number of poems, as well as two children’s novels A Tale from Wonderful Wigworth and Rebecca Rose and the Red Bicycle. He has lived in Shanghai for the past three years.
Nature’s Refuge: Parks of Shanghai
Writers over the years have often stated how parks and areas of nature are vital in stifling cities because they cleanse the soul and mind of the grease and dirt of the modern, metallic, merciless metropolis. Walt Whitman called nature a ‘teacher and a comforter’; William Blake would often frequent Peckham Rye in order to escape the black, suffocating smoke of London (and it is where he saw those beautiful angels); Henry David Thoreau found nature’s slower rhythm and gentleness as a superior alternative to the greed, consumerism and lack of spiritual nourishment in the modern, capitalist American society of the 1900s.
Parks in the city are a rustic refuge from the consumerist and financial battle zones; they are the open windows that let in cool, fresh air to the stuffy, dirty room of the city.
I am going to now tell you about my very own natural refuge and open window in our home of Shanghai.
When I first moved onto Pingwu Lu (near Jiaotong University) a few months ago, there was a sinuous ribbon of blue fence skirting a piece of large land near my apartment. After consulting Google maps, I discovered that this was a venerable, beautiful park called Huashan Greenland. Why it was fenced and closed was a mystery to me at first (and no internet searches or local residents could assuage my distress and bemusement at its closure). I prayed that it would reopen (and dreaded that it might be closed permanently).
On the third day of living in this area, the mystery was solved when I spied, upon a section of the encompassing fence, a small sign nailed to it. I could not decipher the Chinese symbols, but I could read a date that was in vibrant, red, bold letters: 06.06.19. I presumed that this was the date on which the park would reopen after, presumably, undergoing renovation. The date I saw this sign was on 07.05.19, which meant I would have to wait a few weeks to see if my presumptions were correct.
In the meantime, I went on morning walks past the blue fence and the secret garden behind it down the little streets and alleys that surrounded Pingwu Lu. I was not alone in my rambles as many other local residents also had to replace morning walks in the park with walking on the roads discontentedly beside it. There are many older, local residents around this area, all possessing a gentle nature, polite smiles and memories of old Shanghai and China that the young, naïve modern skyscrapers and business offices shooting up around the area have no idea about; memories of a China that young, naïve, new residents like me and many others have no idea about. Hardships and struggling economies are hard to grasp when luxury apartments, European-style cafes and flash cars are common sights.
My apartment, however, is an old one and although I am fond of it there is no denying that it looks like the scruffy schoolkid compared to the well- off child that the luxury apartments up the road represent. However, both old and new, roughed and pristine, are needed to create a great city instead of a generic one.
06.06.19 finally came. As I walked towards the park to catch a taxi to work, I had no reason to doubt or question famous Chinese efficiency because, just as the sign had proclaimed, the park had reopened on this exact day and, already on this morning, was full of eager morning ramblers. It was a perfect day for it, one of those divine, bright, warm ,golden mornings where nature and the city are singing in harmonious joviality.
That warm evening, where the harmonious song was still being sung but was slightly quieter, I had the chance to take my maiden walk around the park.
When I got to the park, a natural masterpiece decorated with trees, ponds, pink and white peonies as well as meandering paths, it was buzzing with life and energy: runners and walkers; young, excited children; world weary, lethargic elderly; strong, young basketball players; solitary, gentle thinkers. I walked amongst them with contentment and joy in my heart. This was nature’s playground and all of nature’s children were welcome to come and play. Van Gogh said that ‘nature laughs in flowers’ and all around this park I could hear jolly laughter from its pink, purple and red residents.
We had all walked into the park with different masks, identities, and levels of contentment from the individualistic, isolating city but now had had all become equal children of nature. This is the true beauty of city parks: they are indiscriminate, communal, and egalitarian. They are where we can go to reclaim our ‘noble savage’ soul and exist in peace alongside complete strangers; where motherly nature can tend to our wounds that are inflicted by working in the harsh, dangerous workhouse of the city. From Huashan Greenland and Fuxing Park to Zhongshan Park and Century Park, Shanghai is lucky to have these natural havens that we can escape to. So whenever you feel beaten down by the world or you want to share your joy with someone, take yourself to your local Shanghai park because the trees, flowers and jovial birds will be happy to have you. Let nature care for you; she is a loyal friend that we have far too often neglected and taken for granted.
I have visited Huashan Greenland many times since that day it reopened. In my personal opinion she looks the best attired in early evening or sunny mornings, so these are the times I often dwell there. Whitman was right: parks are teachers and comforters. Being amongst nature, in China and in England, has taught me compassion, empathy, and that you do not need to move at a fast, aggressive, and all too human destructive pace to get things accomplished. As Lao Tzu said, ‘Nature does not hurry but gets everything done.’
Nature has also comforted me by providing me with the medicine to take away the fears, anxieties, and lack of contentment that isolation in the city and in our apartments can induce. The natural world is immortal and will easily outlive us, but during our lives, which are full of so much angst about death, we can go to a beautiful park, forget about our inevitable ending, and gift a piece of our soul to eternity. We must not abandon the progression, thrill, and culture that cities cradle, but we must find a balance between the art of nature (parks) and the art of humans (cities) and not let the latter take over the former.