San Rafael 6/6/2009 12:23:47 AM
Fine Art, Culture and Cuisine Collide in China
Exquisite Cultural Tours of China Focus on Fine Art and Cuisine
Chinese Fine Arts & High Cuisine Tour
A Taste of Refined Elegance
By making China’s fine art and her fabled culinary traditions our exclusive focus, we ready ourselves for an unforgettable tour experience. This itinerary reveals the excellence of China’s artistic traditions and of her culinary fare. We immerse ourselves China’s finest art and architecture as well as partake of the creations of the country’s best restaurants.
We will enjoy four special gourmet dinners, two in Beijing and one each in Fuchun Resort and Shanghai. These dinning establishments offer some of the most unique culinary experiences in China today. In each restaurant fabulous dishes are enjoyed in spectacular dining environments.
Connoisseurship in the Middle Kingdom Tour
Refined Arts of Chinese Furniture, Porcelain & Jade, Tea & Silk
The love of fine things is a Chinese tradition. In fact, Chinese were “collecting antiques” while Athens was still taking its first infant steps to launch a civilization. For the educated Chinese, refined feeling is expressed through the love of art objects, the older the better.
Our Connoisseurship in the Middle Kingdom tour brings us into this rare world of Chinese antiques. We focus on Chinese furniture at Beijing’s Guanfu Museum, which displays the finest collection of Ming & Qing furniture in the world. The museum is the love child of Ma Weidu, China’s preeminent collector of traditional furniture. And it is easy to feel the love in the exquisite recreations of imperial scholar rooms and elite reception rooms he has created.
Next, we go to the Panjiayuan Antiques Building in Beijing to explore porcelain and jade. Now, Panjiayuan is a name synonymous with a weekend flea market specializing in “art objects.” More often these things are peasants’ old household items. But the Antiques Building is different. Here, antique dealers sell their wares to the public. And while our motive may not be to purchase, still the eight floors of small dealerships offer an excellent opportunity to mingle with the city cognoscenti on fine porcelain and jade.
In Hangzhou, we concentrate on tea at Meijiawu tea plantation. We see how tea is grown, processed, and brought to market. Later, we visit the Hangzhou Tea Museum to get an idea of the immense variety of cultivated teas. We also learn about “purple clay” zisha tea ware, with which the Chinese have developed an elaborate art of tea. Expertise on tealeaves naturally leads to expertise on teapots.
In Hangzhou we also visit the National Silk Museum to explore the history of silk cultivation and manufacture. As silk has been produced in China for thousands of years, it has a long and gloried past. Even so, there is much that Chinese do not know about earlier silk production; indeed, they are all but mystified by the quality of silk garments excavated from two-thousand-year-old tombs.
Finally in Shanghai, we continue our exploration of these fine arts at the Shanghai Museum, which has outstanding collections of each form. By this time we will have become conversant with the principles of Chinese connoisseurship and will be able to appreciate the riches before our eyes.
All told, this tour awakens us to the aesthetic of “Chinese taste” in all its facets. What is most amazing is that the artworks we peruse throughout the tour are individually united by a sense of elegance and tranquility. A Ming chair, Qing porcelain, Yixing teapot, Han jade, and a steaming cup of longjing tea all partake of these qualities. It is what the Chinese connoisseur sought above all; and we shall experience for ourselves why his taste was impeccable.
Call Travelwizard.com at 1.800.330.8820 about a Cultural, Culinary or Fine Art Tour of China.
