An old teahouse with a history of more than 100 years in Pengzhen Town of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan in the southwest, once was almost abandoned but now attracts people with its nostalgic slow lifestyle that brews people away from the bustling modernity.
Known as Pengzhen Old Teahouse, the property is also named Guanyinge, or Guanyin Attic, from a story that a fire devastating the town over a century ago spared this building only because of the blessing of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, or Guanyin.
Li Qiang, the owner of the century-old teahouse, has been working at the teahouse for over two decades. He stressed that a traditional structure can't be treated as a shrine for people to worship or a specimen to be observed.
Many local senior citizens enjoy spending their time at the teahouse.
"In fact, I think the relationship between the guests and me is like the relationship between the elders and the juniors. Especially in the mornings, many are retirees, ranging from 60 to 90 years old. But for me, I've been working here for over 20 years. In other words, when I was young, they were middle-aged. I saw them growing older, and they witnessed us becoming middle-aged," Li said. Guanyinge has been standing here for 108 years, watching people coming and going. It was listed as a protected historical building in 2016.
Professor Zhang Yu from the Architecture and Design Institute of the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu is in charge of protecting this legendary teahouse.
"For a long period of time in retrospect, like many other ancient towns, this old town inevitably fell into decline, during which there was only one teahouse in the town still in business. This was the only one left at that time. After all those years, people have finally realized the value of this authentic lifestyle," said Zhang.
A teahouse is the best place to depict the sense of harmony. All visitors are equal, and there's no distinction between tea lovers. But if in those well-decorated teahouses with relatively modern facilities, customers can hardly feel an inner peace, and also have a sense of distance from each other, said Li.
This could explain why the century-old teahouse remains attractive, he said.
Century-old teahouse in Chengdu presents slow life style
