Four Days in Shanghai

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It's been a while since I've written because work has been hellish. We have an 8-day vacation for National Day (国庆节) and the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). Vacation started Sept. 27th, and we have classes immediately after we get back. Because of that we had to write twice the lesson plans in one week, on top of our regular workload. But thankfully that's over with and now I am wrapping up the first leg of my vacation, which I spent in Shanghai.

I'm staying with Seneca, a fellow Ithacan and a friend from high school. She's teaching at Shanghai University in a much cushier position than mine. She works something like 12 hours a week and only makes 1300 kuai a month less than I do. On the other side of the coin, she doesn't have anything like the support net I have back in Dalian and so is largely on her own in this crazy city. Shanghai is gigantic and constantly bustling, even more so than what I am used to from living in large Chinese cities (or even large American cities). It's mostly Westernized and the locals are savvy to, and consequently sick of, foreigners and their ways. Lots of toursit traps here. It's hard to get a good grasp of what the city is like in four days, so I took it for granted that I would be doing a lot of corny touristy things and was ok with that. The real challenge is not spending a lot of money; whereas in some other Chinese cities the usual Foreigner's Tax on all merchandise might be canceled out by the fact that I can bargain in Chinese (to the extent that I can say the numbers and "Too expensive!!"), here most of the vendors and even the taxi drivers speak better English than my Chinese, rendering my bargaining "skillz" (...with a z) useless.

The first night I got here, Seneca and I went out to dinner in a part of town called the French Concession, as it was the part of Shanghai owned by the French at the turn of the 19th century. We went with what seems to be Seneca's only friend here, her coworker Mark, a British guy about our age who caught the travel bug. We found some tiny little place that turned out to be awesome, and ordered by the usual Chinese Roulette method of pointing at pictures that happened to look appetizing. We got very lucky. Mark incapacitated Seneca and me with his dry British wit, and we went back home early because we both were feeling a little ill. I was worried that I was going to get quarantined in the airport on the way here, because the swine flu scare is at an all-time high, but luckily the Chinese aren't as paranoid as everyone says and I got through safely. Now I feel fine, so that was nothing to be worried about.

The next day Seneca had to work, so Mark kindly volunteered to take me around town. It happened that I ended up taking him around town; we went to a part of Shanghai called the Old City, where he had never been. The Old City is the only part of China where foreigners weren't allowed during the imperialism of the 18th and 19th centuries, so it is supposed to be more like the "Old China" than the rest of gaudy Shanghai. We visited a Taoist temple that was mainly a tourist attraction. It had a cool statue of a god and a troupe of monks playing some ancient ritual music, but we wandered around back to find a fully functional, stainless-steel kitchen, which kind of defeated our awed and reverent attitude, although I guess we could have expected as much. I tried to steer us to where the guide book said to go, but we ended up getting lost, which was the best luck we could have hoped for. The streets were narrow, winding, and dirty, with old Chinese people cooking aromatic, strange foods on the street in front of their one-room shops or houses. Mark was happy to find this little oasis away from the craziness of the big city. Then we found our way back to where the guidebooks said to go, which was chokingly full of tourists from all kinds of countries, complete with blatantly painted shops in a crude mockery of the genuine storefronts we had just witnessed. The Old City that most people see is eye-catching and awe-inspiring in the way that an amusement park is thrilling; it's obviously constructed to mimic something that doesn't actually exist in the real world. The real Old City was quiet and dirty, but it was genuine. Consequently, no tourists went there.

Mark and I then walked around the financial district of Shanghai, which has two of the tallest buildings in the world (at one point both of them were THE tallest building, but they have since been surpassed). The whole time of y stay in Shanghai, but here especially,I was awed by the skyline. It is one of the most unique, odd, and magnificent collection of skyscrapers I have ever seen. We decided not to pay the 150 RMB fee to go up to the top of the "Shanghai World Finance or whatever" building, the one shaped like a bottle opener at the top. Mark was going to take me to the Bund, one of the famous waterfront tourist districts in Shanghai, but like the rest of the city it is under construction. The city is feverishly preparing for the World Expo in 2010. The signs around the city explaining the construction have English translations like 'Better city, Better life," or "Becoming Civilized for the Expo," etc. There are homages in sculpture or otherwise to the year 2010 as well. I don't know why they're so happy about this Expo, but the city must be pumping trillions of dollars into repairs and construction of new edifices. Half the city is behind construction walls.

On my second fulll day in Shanghai Seneca had no work, so we elected to go to Suzhou, a small tourist trap town about a thirty minute train ride from Shanghai proper. Suzhou is an ancient canal town, and while most of it has been updated to fit Western tourist needs (such as the installment of plenty McDonalds' and KFC's), many of the old Chinese gardens remain (or at least have been preserved to fit Western tourist needs). Suzhou is also one of China's famous silk production towns. We were going to go for a day trip, but when we got to the train station at 12 there wasn't a ticket available until 2:30, so we spent 2 hours hanging around the maddeningly crowded station. When we finally got to Suzhou, we took a taxi to find an Internet bar so Seneca could talk to her boyfriend in Ireland, only to realize that of course the INternet bar computers don't have Skype installed. We then tried to take a taxi back across town to the Daoist "Temple of Mystery," but it was nearing rush hour and all the cabs were taken, so we were coerced into taking a bicycle rickshaw instead. This was probably one of the most amusing experiences I've had in China so far. Sitting in the back of a rickety old canopied bicycle attracted more stares than I usually get as a 6-foot tall white guy in China. It was a sad mockery of what it would be like to be royalty in ancient China, I suppose. The rickshaw driver then had to negotiate a busy street with two buses, where there was definitely not enough room for the three of us. Finally, we made it to the temple, which was closed, as was the silk museum and all the other gardens in the city. But we didn't really mind; we got a chance to walk around the quiet back streets, which for Seneca was a much-appreciated getaway from the craziness and bustle of Shanghai. Again, I found that I just prefer exploring the lesser-traveled parts of a town than going to all the requisite sights and attractions.


The last day in Shanghai, it was raining terribly so I decided to go see the free Shanghai museum in People's Square. The museum was a pretty cool collection of old CHinese art, including ancient jade, pottery, and calligraphy. I like the calligraphy the most, maybe just because I can't understand what it says; this probably adds to the air of mystery I find in a calligraphy scroll. I also like the variations in script; from the clearly etched letters to the barley legible version of Chinese cursive. I hung around in the museum for a while and then met up with Seneca and Mark for dinner at a really good Thai restaurant. The next day, I got up early to get to the airport so I could sit around for 8 hours while my plane kept getting delayed. I finally made it to Beijing, though, and now I'm waiting to see what adventures I'll have this weekend.

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Photos

Photo 2
Speedometer on the Maglev from the airport

Photo 3
Fastest it got was 431 km/hr

2010
Part of the craziness over the upcoming expo; 2010 is all over the place

Photo 10
The brit on my right is Seneca's friend Mark

Photo 12
Shanghai's two tallest buildings, Jin Mao and the Shanghai World Financial Center

Photo 13
Daoist temple in Old City overshadowed by an apartment complex

Photo 14
The real Old City

Photo 15
The Temple of McDonald's

Photo 20
Shanghai WFC and the Jin Mao in its reflection

Comments

[Mom]

Thank you for posting these excellent photos.