Asian Celebration continues today with focus on nature

When Jane Wong moved from Shang Hai to Lisle in 1990, she'd never seen a rickshaw driver haul people down a busy street.

In mainland China, she said, rickshaws are history. These days, people take cabs or bicycles.

But she was hoping to see a rickshaw rider or two Saturday at the Asian Celebration at Morton Arboretum.

Rickshaw rides are among the facets of Chinese culture, past and present, highlighted at this year's festival, the third of its kind at Morton. These rickshaws employ bicycle riders to pull carts loaded with passengers.

The festivities continue today at the Lisle conservation park with taiko drumming, bonsai displays, children's crafts and Ikebana flower arranging demonstrations.

Wong said she didn't even know about the celebration when she arrived with her husband, two sons and her in-laws, visiting from California.

"It was by accident," she said. "I was happily surprised."

As the clock edged toward noon, Wong said she and her family looked forward to indulging in Asian cuisine. And she didn't want to miss the Chinese tea ceremonies set to take place under a white tent in the shade of a pine grove beside Meadow Lake.

Wong said she's witnessed Japanese tea ceremonies, but never the Chinese version.

"It's more like a ritual than just drinking tea," she said of the Japanese custom. "The people sit calmly and there's usually music in the background."

The tea-maker serves tea slowly, deliberately and with grace.

"You look at her and all your worries are gone. It's like yoga. It's nice to watch," Wong said.

As Wong enjoyed the lush serenity of the arboretum's summer splendor, Dan Robertson was preparing to perform a Chinese tea ceremony.

"Tea is a very important thing in a lot of cultures," said Robertson, who owns a Naperville business, the Tea House, that imports and wholesales tea. "We don't have anything like it here."

Robertson said the brewing, serving and drinking of tea is like a quasi-religious ceremony in some cultures, helping the participants to commune with nature, their spiritual life and each other.

As Robertson and his wife, Q.Z., who hails from mainland China, set up for the tea ceremony demonstrations, Robertson said poetry is often recited during tea ceremonies, which themselves have a poetic quality.

"I'm going to make an oolong tea called 'Iron Goddess of Mercy,'" he said, adding that even the names of teas have a lyrical quality.

Meanwhile, behind the Visitor Center, a crowd was gathering for Naperville teacher Patti Essig's interactive yoga lesson.

"What's important is the breath. We're using the breath to release tension from the body," said Essig. "Our breath is our most valuable tool to relax the body and calm the mind."

She took the stage with three of her students and led the assembled crowd through the Mountain pose and then the Half Moon.

She asked her standing students to bring their hands up over their heads, interlace their fingers and lean to the right.

"Press into the soles of your right foot and feel the stretch on your right side," she said. "Don't forget to breathe."