and cultural centres for local society.
The most important thing we do is protect the two old streets in the old town, Nail Street and Flagstone Street, and their two tea houses. The special feature of the buildings in these streets is the 'single tile' roofs; the tiles are laid flush with no overlap at all. When the ancient-buildings people from the Architectural Institute saw them they said, 'Don't these single-tile roofs leak?' We said, 'No, they don't!' We usually start with a layer of ordinary overlapping tiles, which are then covered with another layer of single tiles. We've had single tiles here since ancient times. We told the Architectural Institute that it was vital to preserve those two streets. If we don't preserve them now they'll disappear, a bit at a time, and once they're gone there'll never be any more. We now have about 5,600 square metres of the old city left, all old houses made of small blue-green bricks baked from local clay. That in itself is a big museum of ancient architecture.
XINRAN: That's true. The city itself is a huge museum of ancient architectural culture, just like the city of Rome. Mr Chen, while you were talking I've been trying to picture it. Apart from the things that everyone knows, the ancient remains and culture that have survived here, what else is there? Is there anything else that can become a resource and a motive for opening up the daily life of the people of Linhuan? How large is the population of Linhuan?
CHEN: There are 88,500 people in the greater Linhuan district, and 21,000 in the ancient building area.
XINRAN: And what percentage of this population has been educated?
CHEN: Hard to say. There are several teachers, and there used to be an old
XINRAN: Are there more young and middle-aged people in Linhuan or more old people?
CHEN: More old people.
XINRAN: So the old people are the tea houses' guarantee of survival?
CHEN: All the old people in Linhuan have something to say about history, true. That's the wealth of the tea houses.
XINRAN: Because I too once came under pressure from a different form of poverty, I know that poverty really does cause people's thinking to change. How many tea houses are there in Linhuan at present?
CHEN: Sixteen. They used to be called tiger stoves. Now we call them
XINRAN: Linhuan has four thousand years of history. Am I right in saying that it's impossible to bring back the original style of the ancient buildings along the Huai River using today's building materials?
CHEN: We've been thinking about this too. You need different materials to make different houses. In our part of the world we have a lot of fired bricks. At first they were all blue-green bricks, made in special kilns – the best kind of china comes from those kilns. Later on the quality of the clay was affected by pollution. Then there was large- scale flooding in the region along the Huai River. The river water was full of sand, and when it came washing over, it left behind a lot of sand. But if you're careful in the extraction process, it's still possible to find good-quality clay. You come and see next year, it'll be different again. It will basically all be back the way it was, and it'll be the genuine article. We're repairing the old to bring back the old.
XINRAN: In the past, did your connecting stoves include bathing, too, like the tiger stoves of Nanjing and Shanghai?
CHEN: No, it was all just drinking. They drink and chat, discussing old things and new, ordinary people talking about their own business. If you have conflicts, if you have unfilial sons or daughters, then you drag them to the tea house to mediate. Once you're at the tea house a resolution is guaranteed, and everything will be fine, and you don't have to pay lawyers' fees or bring an accusation to the court.
XINRAN: So what percentage of people in this place spend how much time in the tea house?
CHEN: I can't give you a definite figure, but at least half the middleaged people, and most of the old men, and boys start going to the tea houses for tea from a very young age – sometimes there are even small children. I used to go to the tea house when I was small to listen to the storytellers. We didn't have a word for news, but people who'd been to market far away would head for the tea house on their return to 'sing the news'. It was just like storytelling. You could hear all sorts of strange things in the tea houses. Old Mr Wu, who you interviewed, started 'singing' the revolution in tea houses when he was ten years old. Our Linhuan tea houses were what our modern- day city people might call 'news and media centres'.
XINRAN: Did you have that sort of thing in the Cultural Revolution too?
CHEN: They sang news then too, but they didn't talk about politics – nobody dared. And every day there was someone reciting the works of Chairman Mao.
XINRAN: According to your understanding of the people who run the tea houses, what is the greatest hardship of their lives, and the greatest happiness?
CHEN: The hardship is opening at daybreak and staying open till midnight, spending all day constantly brewing tea and topping up people's pots, and slaving away all day for such a tiny income, just enough to keep body and soul together. But the joy for tea-house owners is that everybody goes there, they come into contact with people every day, they hear the news, and see a bit more of the world.
XINRAN: So do you think that there are any differences between tea houses before and after Liberation?
CHEN: They're pretty much the same. We're poor here. Nobody here wants to go messing around with these things. Almost all the old ways of doing things have been passed down from former generations.
XINRAN: Have they been influenced by all the changing governments and regimes?
CHEN: No, you reform your reform, they drink their tea. Nothing's changed.
XINRAN: Were there any cases in the Cultural Revolution of people being impeached or reported on because of things that they'd said in the tea houses?
CHEN: No, very few. At that time everybody was on their guard.
XINRAN: So are the tea-drinking utensils the same as when you were small?
CHEN: Basically they're still the same. But at that time the tables were long plank benches. Now they've started using little square tables. That has its advantages too. Small groups of people can drink tea and play cards together.
XINRAN: Do you worry that now people are surrounded by the material trappings of modern life the tea houses will be replaced by modern materialistic things too?
CHEN: Before the Cultural Revolution there were two tea houses; now there are sixteen. We can see from this change that tea culture has also changed. And there are more tea houses opening soon. Each one has two hundred teapots. Sixteen tea houses, that's over three thousand pots. It won't be easy to replace that many.
XINRAN: Might modern teapots and teacups influence the culture of the tea houses? Aren't you worried that the Chinese tea culture you've been talking about will be changed, and people will start using pretty teapots with foreign words printed on them?
CHEN: Definitely not. Foreign letters and tea just don't mix!
XINRAN: In your childhood did you use tea bowls or teacups?
CHEN: Little handleless teacups, little bowls.
XINRAN: What I was drinking just now was in a little bowl.
CHEN: There aren't any of the tiny bowls like eggcups that they once used left now – we have to order them specially. A lot of the little kilns that used to produce tea bowls and handleless cups have gone out of business. We're getting ready for a return to terracotta bowls. We want the real, earthy local culture, so earthy that you can see the mud dropping off it. We want to preserve that real, genuine, authentic tea culture.
XINRAN: Do you think the young people support your attitude? Are they calling out for this 'so local it's dropping mud' tea culture?
CHEN: Some support it, others don't.
XINRAN: Are there any young people who say that these ideas of yours and the things you're doing are ignorant and foolish?
CHEN: Yes, lots! And that includes some of the local officials. They can't see that these ancient relics are our
