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Published: March 16th 2009
What's up peeps?
Sorry it's been a little while. I've been out seeing the world and have had limited access to the internet. Decided to wait until Hong Kong (where computer time is most expensive) to fill you in. I'm smart like that!
So first off, I'd like to say that I made at least one factual error in my last posting (my travel budget didn't allow me to hire any of Obama's fact checkers!). The Eric B. and Rakim album I mentioned is not "Getting Paid" but "Paid in Full":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_in_Full_(album)
Now it seems like one could buy just about anything one wants in Shanghai (more on that later) but I did not come across any phat gold medallions like these. Perhaps I will have better luck in Hong Kong!
You can view some pics of Beijing and Shanghai here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8870546@N03/sets/72157614573413307/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8870546@N03/sets/72157615020448942/
I got a few full moon shots of the river, some boats, and the skyscrapers of Pudong in there - probably the closest I've come to postcard shots - enjoy!
So I believe I left off in Beijing. The rest of my stay there was very nice. Went to the Temple of Heaven (a bit of a letdown after the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace), the Great Wall (did not disappoint), and the 798 Gallery Space (cool getting some of the new along with the old).
So the Great Wall........it had snowed the night before. I went up with a group of foreigners on a tourist bus - I met several cool people including a Dane, a few Brits, an American, and a couple of Australians. Our goal was to hike along the wall from Jinshanling to Simitai - about 6 miles. Jinshanling was covered with dense fog when we arrived. At first I was concerned we might not be able to see anything. But once we started in, it was so cool to be enjoying the Wall in this kind of winter wonderland. I was wondering if I was going to slide down the mountain into a ditch as the snow made the hike a beautiful, if at points harrowing, experience (the Wall is very steep in sections). The Wall revealed itself to us piecemeal, slowly slinking across the landscape like a serpent and capping each ridgetop with a sole watchtower (not haiku but pretty good nonetheless, right?). As the day wore on, the sun burnt off the fog and we could see just how beautiful the landscape was. There were no other tourists around. We were followed by a group of locals hoping to sell us souvenirs. I was mildly annoyed with their presence but still impressed with their sherpa-like ability to negotiate the slippery and steep wall in flat-soled shoes and whilst toting a bunch of crap to sell to tourists. One woman singled me out as her target that day and while I bought something, she did not seemed pleased that I didn't buy a bunch of stuff. Sorry but I just don't need a bunch of stuff!
I'd read that between 2-3 million people died while making the Wall and I can believe it. I had a hard enough time just walking on it, let alone schlepping all those bricks up there and actually building it. At one point, the slope on either side of the Wall was going *straight down* - how could anyone get up over that ridge anyhow? They left nothing to chance although the Manchus eventually did get over the Wall, took over China, and established the Qing Dynasty in 1644. Still, the Wall is something to behold. And no, astronauts can't see it from space!
798 Gallery is Beijing's contemporary arts hotspot. As with going to most areas where there a bunch of galleries, you get some good stuff and some not-so-good stuff. I suppose the fact that the place is there at all is cool. Some of the art was definitely political in nature. I particularly enjoyed the photography - lots of cool photographs of life in China - both in Beijing and in rural areas. I'd definitely recommend going to check it out if you are ever in Beijing.
I took an overnight train to Shanghai. Can I just say that I've enjoyed traveling on the train - cheaper/more comfortable than flying, you get to check out the landscape, and a significant portion of the more engaging conversations I've had with Chinese people have been on trains. It takes longer and does not make for the most pleasant night's sleep but these are just quibbles. Invariably someone has come up to me, struck up a conversation, and shared food. I was at the Hangzhou East Train Station a few days ago and was just wondering why there were not more (or any!) foreigners around to witness this. It was one of those unexpected moments where you are so glad you're right there at that moment doing what you're doing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.......
So Shanghai. If Beijing is the cultural and historical heart of the country, then Shanghai is certainly the economic one - sort of like Rome is to Milan, Jerusalem is to Tel Aviv, and Kyoto is to Tokyo. In fact, Shanghai reminds me a lot of Tokyo. I got approached by no less than 150 people (I'm not exaggerating) trying to sell me something in Shanghai (I was in Beijing for almost twice as long and was approached by a fraction of the people). Here are some items for you:
bags
jeans
"Rolex" Watches
kites
ladies massage
shoes
marijuana/hash
jackets
chopsticks, etc.
One guy mentioned several things to me and then said "What are you interested in?" I replied "in being left alone." That he seemed to understand! People were even selling their children.
Yes, their children! My first day in Shanghai, I went to People's Square and saw all of these little signs (on 8 and half x 11 sheets of paper) displayed in bushes, on easels, etc. I soon realized that I had happened upon what could best be described as a "love market". Parents were displaying signs that included information on their kids - like height, weight, age, descriptions, etc. It didn't seem like the kids were present - it was mostly just parents hoping to strike a deal and marry off their children. I had never seen anything like this anywhere. That's the second Sunday in a row that I've visited a park and seen some amazing cultural moments. I'm going to make it a goal from now on to go to a park on Sunday - it seems like this is when the most interesting stuff happens.
My couchsurfing experience may also be indicative of the differences between Shanghai and Beijing. In Beijing, I stayed with a teacher at an International School. I had a separate bedroom and there was a housekeeper. Most of the ex-pats I met there were teachers. In Shanghai, I stayed with an Italian who is in Shanghai learning to speak Mandarin (though I didn't ever see him go to class as he had a tendency to oversleep. In fact, I got a hostel the first night as he overslept my arrival. We got along fine thereafter.). I was sleeping on a couch and the place resembled an apartment I shared with three other dudes in the Mission. There was certainly no housekeeper! Sharing the apartment were a couple (recent transplants from Latvia) hoping to make a living through performing music (actually went to a club one night to check out the guy's band and found them quite rockin'), and another recent arrival (a Chinese woman from Guangdong province hoping to find a job). I even met an American who moved to Shanghai to work on green technologies as he thought that China provided more opportunities than the States. Most of these people I would qualify as "aspirants". It seems that Shanghai is a natural magnet for these kinds of people.
Now it might seem that everyone is buying into this new capitalist agenda that China has implemented but in reality, it's probably more complex than that. I went to a couchsurfing event one night in Shanghai - I met many cool people from all over the world but I spent most of the night talking with a Chinese gentleman from the Hunan province - we have a lot in common - we're both musicians, not all that materialistic, enjoy traveling and discussing important issues (and maybe some not-so-important issues too!) with people. He thought that many of the government's policies had not really made that much of a difference in the lives of many Chinese people, particularly those in rural China. China is a complex place and this is certainly reflected in its people.
Speaking of complex, I think Shanghai has the craziest/most complex traffic I've ever seen - even more so than Beijing. The previous holder of this distinction was Buenos Aires but Shanghai wins out for 3 different reasons:
1. The number of conveyances - I saw mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles, cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, wheel barrows, carts, trailers, etc. About the only thing I didn't see was a unicycle but that doesn't mean that there isn't someone riding around on one in Shanghai right now!
2. The sheer number of each of these conveyances - I've never seen so much traffic in my life.
3. The way in which these conveyances are driven.
There are 3 other cities that I am planning on going to which may give Shanghai a run for its money: Bangkok, Delhi, and Cairo but I just don't see any of them winning out. Anything more would be complete and utter chaos. I was in People's Square Station (the center of Shanghai) one day for rush hour - imagine a huge subway station, then imagine it full of people, and then imagine putting as many people again on top of that - it was quite a sight to behold and almost like watching some kind of intense tectonic movement taking place.
As for other experiences in Shanghai, I went to KTV (Chinese Karaoke - perhaps the Chinese don't want to acknowledge Karaoke's Japanese origins!), the Shanghai Museum (more on this below), Yu Yuan (a lovely garden), Pudong (the new high-rise area), on a riverboat cruise (cool way to the see the city at twilight) and the Bund (all these cool art-deco buildings from the early 1900's). I even had lunch with my friend Claudine's parents who live in Shanghai now - they were so nice!!!
KTV was a lot of fun - 2 Italians, 2 Americans, 1 Taiwanese Australian, and 1 German. Of course the Italians regaled us with "Volare" and we heard our fair share of Chinese pop music along with the obligatory "Dancing Queen". The KTV was huge and had a ton of staff. This brings up another point of going into stores and seeing all these people working there. Oftentimes, you're like "What the heck are all these people doing in here?!" Yes, China has some people! I must say though that I've largely appreciated the extra customer service - this lies in stark contrast to the service you oftentimes get in the States where you have to track someone down and then they don't know what you want from a hole in the ground. At KTV, I also met a tourist from Italy named Gianpaulo - he said that I could stay with him in his Tuscan farmhouse outside of Florence - that probably wouldn't suck, right?
The Shanghai Museum is one of the best museums I've ever been to. In my opinion, it alone is worth a trip to Shanghai. If you are into Chinese art at all, it is a *must-see*. The museum traces the history of Chinese art in the following mediums: bronze, ceramics, water color painting, seals, calligraphy, and jade and clay sculpture - from the earliest known samples to very close to the present day. There are also displays of Chinese Minority art and furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Unfortunately, the Chinese Minority art displays were closed but the rest of the museum more than made up for it. I particularly enjoyed how the end of almost every exhibit included an explanatory display on how the artwork was made. I spent the whole day there. I also found it interesting that almost all of the artwork was anonymous. Are we perhaps too fixated on who made something these days? I also learned that the blue and white colors that we in the States most clearly associate with china from China actually came about because the Chinese were making ceramics (to be traded along the Silk Road and elsewhere), in large part, for Muslims who preferred blue in their art (as in Mosques, etc.). And did you know that the Qing Watercolorists incorporated more realism into their paintings as a result of being influenced by European painting? To me, this is all fascinating stuff!
My last day in Shanghai I had lunch with a nice American named Jamie and then went out to eat with a crew of couchsurfing folks. One woman seemed somewhat offended that I called Shanghai a western city. She went on to say that she preferred the word international in describing Shanghai. She said that Tokyo and Sydney are first and foremost Japanese and Australian cities, respectively. Yes, they are but isn't Tokyo largely the way it is because of the influence of the United States and Sydney the way it is because of the influence of the United Kingdom? At first, I thought she was overreacting (like many politically correct people in the Bay Area do!) but the more I thought about it, the more I could kind of see her point - What is eastern and western any more? With the end of the Cold War and with nominally communist countries like China and Vietnam opening themselves up to business, perhaps these are terms that for many reek of colonialism and economic exploitation. Ah, semantics! Conversations like this can be difficult at the time but often open your mind a little bit more in the long run.
After Shanghai, I went to Hangzhou - it was a soothing tonic for the hectic pace of Beijing and Shanghai. Hangzhou is a big city but it has a lake that resides largely unmolested on its west side....hence the name Xi Hu or West Lake. Marco Polo described it thusly:
"A voyage on this lake offers more refreshment and pleasure than any other experience on earth...."
I must say that it was quite nice. The first day I got there, it was cold, wet, and cloudy. I did enjoy what I would call the serene beaty of the lake that day. Nestled in hills and surrounded by temples, it is hard to imagine a more idyllic setting. They even have "pleasure boats" - I love that! It actually reminded me a lot of San Sebastian in Spain. The following day, I would describe as exuberant beauty. It was as if the seasons had turned from winter to spring overnight.....20 degrees warmer, clear, sunny skies, and many people enjoying the surroundings. I felt that I got to spend enough time in Beijing and Shanghai but I could have spent more time in Hangzhou - felt the same way after leaving San Sebastian - that just means I'll have to go back! Take a look at the pics and let me know if you want to join me:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8870546@N03/sets/72157615286206189/
And what of my ongoing investigation to determine whether Hangzhou has the most beautiful women in all of China. Well, I asked the woman working the front desk at the hostel about it and she assured me that "yes, Hangzhou is full of many beautiful things." But if one is trying to determine if Hangzhou has the most beautiful women in all of China, are beautiful women in Hangzhou really going to be the most unbiased source of information? I also asked a very nice man that I met on the train about it. He's from Hangzhou and he mentioned something about Hangzhou having the best spring water in all of China - "this makes for very supple and glowing skin." Okay, I added the supple part! This sounds reasonable enough to me but can I put this whole matter to rest and say definitively that Hangzhou has the most beautiful women in all of China? I don't know - I haven't been to all of China yet - sorry! I saw many beautiful women in Hangzhou but I also saw many beautiful women in Shanghai and in Beijing. What I can say is that I met some of the nicest people I've met on my trip in Hangzhou. In addition to those I've already mentioned, I met an elderly man with a cane when I first arrived. He spoke no English but was intent on helping me find my hostel (which I was obviously having trouble finding). I would have told him not to bother had I been able. I had the address written down on a piece of paper in Chinese. He walked with me up a hill for close to a half mile. When we got close to the hostel, he pointed at my pocket. I thought he wanted some money for his efforts, so I got out some money and he shook his head "no, no, no". Turns out, he wanted the piece of paper so he could show me he had taken me to the right place. I'm getting a little choked up just thinking about it. So I guess that often happens while traveling, you go some place thinking you'll find one thing, and then you find something completely different and oftentimes better.
As for me, I've had some good days and bad days but mostly good ones. Oftentimes I think that this is what I was put on this Earth to do. Hong Kong seems quite interesting on first inspection but I will get more into that later! I go to Vietnam this weekend and will fill you in next time I have the opportunity.
Well, take care and talk with you soon!
b
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Mia
non-member comment
I'm guessing they show up because you keep mentioning beautiful women, but the personal ads for Chinese single ladies below your blog are a nice touch. Sounds like an awesome trip so far!