Hangzhou to Shanghai by bus

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7/9: I've been concentrating on organizing and labeling the earlier pictures, and adding some and it struck me that I hadn't finished posting text, although I did finish writing on the plane home. So, here's our first day in Shanghai and I've added some earlier pictures.

Friday, July 1—last stop, Shanghai!

This morning we travel by bus to Shanghai. Along the way, our guide, who was born in 1948, told us his life story. Information from the guide, first:

Grand Canal goes from Beijing to Hangzhou, 2700 km, 1000 years to build. The purpose was to send the Army from the South to the North to conquer Korea. The canal was stopped by/at the mountains and has been used more for shipping goods: coal to the south; silk, cotton, gardens, to the north. The Emperor used for inspection tours. They would sail when they could; at other times, the boats were dragged by thousands of 5, 6, 7 year old girls. Everyone suffered because homage had to be paid at every town. Now, 1/3 of the canal is backed up by silt and not used. Mostly used for coal and building materials. The river sand/silt is sent to Shanghai to use as building material because they can’t use sea sand. There is also a fast train (40 mins) to Shanghai but the bus is easier for us because of the luggage.
He likes being a tour guide so he can meet people from all over and can ask questions if he doesn’t understand something going on in their country.
He likes to take the train from Hangzou to Beijing each spring to see the changing scenery. Farmers in the south have already harvested one crop, Beijing area is just beginning to plant.

Life story:
The Revolution was in 1949 when the Communists liberated North China; in 1951, Central China. In 1954, all of his grandfather’s land was confiscated as part of land reform and he recommended his sons leave for the city. To avoid politics, he also recommended they become teachers and don’t join a side. His father went to the city of Hangzhou and became a teacher at Hangzhou Agricultural University.
In 1955, when he was 7 years old, Taiwan dropped anti-Communist flyers from airplanes on the countryside and the local government told the people that they were poison. They meant that the contents were poisonous but the farmers took them literally and used metal sticks to pick up the flyers and throw them away, thinking that the paper itself was poisoned.
In 1970, the Great Famine: 3 years of crop disasters, no food. They had meal tickets for 150 g of food per day. Students got 200 g, seniors and children, 100 g. You had to cash in the tickets at specific times, could not save them up. Ate rice husks even.
To recover from the lost 3 years, The Great Leap Forward, Mao asked citizens each to kill 4 things: rats, sparrows, mosquitoes, and flies. Mosquitoes were collected in a box and counted by the monitor. His mother and other mothers sat on the roofs with metal basins and spoons to bang and scare the sparrows who did get scared and so exhausted because there was no where to land that they would fall to the ground exhausted and could be collected.
Cultural Revolution: left wing was Mao and the Central Government; Right wing, asking for more freedom for farmers to decide what to grow on their own. The Red Guard (of which he was a member) was children of teachers and farmers, the next generation of revolutionaries. They were to search, amongst their families and the homes of their fellow students, for spies from Taiwan. When one was found, he was thown out in the street and forced to wear a sign, “I am an anti-revolutionary” and parade through the street. They all had an Army belt to use to hit people. Anything pertaining to Chiang Kai-Shek or Taiwan was suspect. People were beat to confess, then sent to the countryside to further confess. The Red Guard investigated the parents of his classmates, particularly those who had been Chiang Kai-Shek bureaucrats. University professors had been 'connected'; were now seen as spies if they’d been to the U.S. Landlords were capitalists, Buddhist statues were smashed, churches were burned, for three years, then they began to fight one another.
In the NW were lots of military factories (they’d moved them west during WWII to protect them from the Japanese). Ten years of fighting.
Could not be in the Red Guard if you were: a capitalist, a landlord, a spy for the U.S., a spy for Chiang Kai Shek, or a corrupt official.
Everyone has a record, where they were born, went to school, etc. which the Red Guard researched to see what everyone’s father did. His father had studied under someone who was disapproved of and so his father was sent for one year to live in a pig pen in the country. He worked in the fields all day and wrote confessions at night, was asked to identify fellow students during the three years he ended up serving. Meanwhile, his mother was harassed and asked to identify things about his father. People stoned their home in the evenings.
In 1972, Nixon went to China, in 1975, Chiang Kai Shek died, in 1976, Mao died. Gradually, things began to normalize. His father returned and worked again as a teacher, schools began again. For 10 years, there had been no education. A lost generation—for 10 years, educators had been sent to farms and labor camps. In 1978, the Gang of Four was prosecuted. The president tried to escape but his helicopter ran out of gas over Mongolia.
People were able to go out into the countryside again; culture, production, economy were destroyed. There were barely enough resources for 2 meals a day. People worked, ate a bit and went to bed—there was no energy for anything else.
“re-education”: students read too many books. Asked farmers to re-educate them, teach them how to cut rice.
He was a “barefoot doctor”. The patients were barefoot, not the doctor. Not sure how he got assigned to this role, since he had no training in medicine nor experience but could read. He was given a clinic box and held clinic in the evenings. He learned to do acupuncture, did well, and was sent to the county hospital to learn “more”.
1979 began attending normal teachers college. He didn’t graduate at that time so went to work in a gravel factory. College entrance exams hadn’t been given for 30 years and all schools had been closed for 10 years.
Normalization with the U.S. allowed tourists and cultural exchange. Economic reform (change from the Soviet style planned economy) was instituted. Deng Xiaoping had studied in France. There were no department stores, everyone wore uniforms in the color of their business (chemistry was yellow, textiles were black); each person received 2 uniforms per year. No one wears uniforms now.
In 1978, resumed entrance exams but had to train teachers first. He was able to take the first test but it had been 10 years since he’d taken a test or had any kind of education and he didn’t know many of the answers, particularly in the sciences and maths. The government recognized that there had been no education for many people for so long and created a second exam, mainly English and Culture, so there were two tests. He started his own “new words notebook” to learn English faster and listened to the Voice of America. He passed the test and chose to go to Normal College, Teacher’s College. When he finished, he taught what he called Chinglish. He typed his own handouts and lessons as there was only one text available.
There were four Special Economic Zones established with free economies and policies decided on by the mayor of the zone. He worked in Macau as a tour guide. During that job, he had to record the names of tourists, where they went, number of pictures they took and what they were of and report that to the police. If his reports were ok, he could show another group around. The police would confiscate film if pictures were taken of unfavorable situations or scenes (and there was the added complication of the elderly fearing their souls would be stolen). Westerners were seen as bizarre. Macau also needed English-language interpreters. Before 1972, it had been a Portuguese free zone. There had been bunkers along the coast and one had to use telescopes to see China but couldn’t go there. All the bunkers and barbed wire was removed by 1977. He saw Michael Jackson there once, briefly, when he and his entourage came through. That was a happy memory.
The 1990s economic reform saw him working in a hotel but there was a lot of corruption; owners used bank loans for themselves and ruined the business and lost it. It was sold to party members referred to as “red capitalists” who used the country’s money to get rich. The whole country changed overnight: businesses from government to privately-run, gradually over 10 years it got better. He moved back to Hangzhou which is where his wife and daughter lived.
When red capitalists bought a company, they often fired the workers who’d been employed there for 10-20 years and brought in young, cheap labor from the countryside. This ridded them of the “higher” wages and of the social burden of senior workers, could pay ½ the wages and have no social security responsibilities. Great profits and avoided taxes through bribery. If you weren’t a party member, you weren’t promoted, still.
His mother is a Buddhist, he’s a Taoist, his sister is a gourmet…

As we entered Shanghai, we passed a number of two-story houses with blue glass in the upper floor. Silk worms are raised on the second floor. They eat mulberry leaves but won’t eat if there’s noise, excessive sunlight, perfume, very fragile. He’s tried but had no success raising them. Before breakfast, trees are cut and brought in. The women and young girls clean the leaves and feed the worms. 40 days for a crop, 5 corps per year. As with tea, early spring is the best. The boys and men work on keeping the trees healthy. As kids go to the city and don’t want to be farmers, the silk market is going to keep rising in cost.

In Shanghai, the rich stay in small villas, not big hotels, because they own the land. As other places, buildings older than 50 years cannot be torn down (maybe that’s why Xi’An’s rebuilding everything at 30?)

When we arrived in Shanghai, “the bus driver relied on the GPS just a little too much” and we got turned around a bit. We asked directions, the guide read a map, called a couple folks, and we made it to the hotel safe and sound, and met our guide for Shanghai, Vicki. We checked into the hotel, went and had lunch (more good food), then headed over to Goldman Sachs to visit with a friend of Pamyla Yates (English teacher at BRCC), Amy Yunbo Song, from when Amy was a student in Missouri and Pam was her teacher. Amy is now an institutional investor for alternative energy for Goldman Sachs in the heart of Shanghai and has met with the Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave. We went up to the 43rd floor and met with her in a conference room. She answered questions about her background, current work, the economy. She was very gracious with her time.

Our afternoon continued with a visit to the Jade Buddha Temple, built in 1918. The temple is famous for its jade Buddha statues which are pure white and elegant. The pavilions and halls are in the traditional style of the Song dynasty, and it has four halls: the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, the Grand Hall, the Reclining Buddha Hall and the Jade Buddha Chamber. This temple seemed to be more IN the city, right on the street than the Taoist one in Xi’An or the Eight Immortals or the Lama one. The actually have the main doors padlocked because they’re right on the street. The jade buddhas were beautiful—how can something so hard (jade) almost look creamy and soft? Beautiful bonsais on the way out, too. Again, my camera battery died (will definitely get a second one before October!) so I'll rely on my fellow travelers for pictures.

Information about Shanghai from the guide, Vicki, as we rode around: Shanghai is very flat, the entire eastern border is fluvial marsh lands and flat. The western part of the city is 2000 years old, the eastern part only settled 700 years ago. Highest elevation is 98 meters; average is 4. Population: 23 million, only 14 million are local residents, originally from Shanghai. The other 9 million are immigrants from other provinces. Shanghai natives who are both from one-child families can have 2 children. 6341 sq km, not as big as Beijing. After our discussion with Amy Song, the guide noted that her experience of going abroad is not what it’s like now. It’s very difficult to get an American visa. Because she works free-lance, she’d be rejected (need to have permanent employment to guarantee your return).

A group of us went to dinner at a (Japanese) noodle place a couple blocks away then hit the convenience store for snacks. Dinner was good, even though they were out of pork, beef, and fish…So, we all had plain rice or chicken something. Good company!

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Photos

07011200H2ShHang
Hangzhou in the morning