Shanghai Museum

---

Shanghai Museum of Art, Saturday, July 10, 2010
today we were met here at the Radisson by a friend of Judy's ShuHwa, a retired bank employee, whom Judy met on vacation here in China some years before. She generously offered to show us around Shanghai on Saturday so when she arrived we all went down for breakfast here in the hotel and together roughly planned out a day's trip. First site, the Shanghai Museum. We took the metro again, back on the #11 line to the #2 line and then to the stop (?) that is central to a lot of the downtown activity -- the Hong Kong Shopping Center, the Yuyuan Gardens, and the Shanghai Museum. As we exited the metro women were selling umbrellas -- I should have taken that as a sign because immediately as we stepped out I could feel the first tiny drops of rain. Luckily I had brought a poncho so I donned that covering while Judy and ShuHwa had brought umbrellas to protect themselves in the rain as we waited in line. Security is high at the entrance to the museum. They have metal detectors and they check the water that people bring in by asking you to take a drink of it. We finally got in -- admission is free -- and saw the first temporary exhibition to our left -- early chinese bronze...I wanted to get an audio recording because I have found that to be so instructive in recent years. After a short while in the exhibition I decided that it would be worth it to rent the audio so I had to exit and find the counter to rent a set....when I finally got back Judy and ShuHwa were waiting for me at the beginning of the show...after a while we worked out a sort of a rhythm. One of the most interesting pointsthat I picked up was that a lot of the bronze work has intricate designs, particularly the animal mask...this is the face of an animal symmetrical in its features with a long raised nose and various features from various animals. It appears in almost all of the decorative bronze works that we saw in the show -- vessels for wine, vessels for food, vessels for meat..a water dish, etc. The mask is supposed to represent the Tao po (?) a mythical creature who is supposed to be ravenous and devour humans....I have to research the history of this beast .... We next toured the Buddhist and Taoist statues -- beautiful sculptures of bronze, wood..

---