Shanghai

The center of Old Shanghai life is an area called the Bund. Here there are markets, classic hotels, and the old colonial banks and trading houses. This photo was taken standing on the Bund, looking across the river to Pudong. More than any vista, this captures the essence of Shanghai for me. The city is being rebuilt and is home to hundreds of skyscrapers. It will be the site of an Expo World's Fair next year and an Olympic venue in 2008. So China is dressing up the city and it shows.

This is modern, vibrant, commercial architecture at its best. It could be a photo of almost any large modern city and is indicative of China's aspiration to join the world.

After visiting the Bund we spent the best part of half a day just walking around and getting acclimatized. This was fun. We felt safe although we drew a lot of looks (and a lot of smiles) from local Chinese. And we had a chance to join the river of Chinese life as it flowed around us and we floated with it. At one point we walked down a narrow street and into a big square. We were standing in the middle of the square and I got a funny feeling we were "on stage." There were several hundred Chinese "around" the square but we were alone in the center of a large circle of paving stones. At this point a Chinese man came running to us and ushered us to the edge of the square. Moments later, just on the hour, the circle where we had been standing erupted in an enormous fountain. Multiple jets of water, keyed to music drew laughter and applause from the crowd, including us. Everyone around the square seemed to appreciate the show, and we certainly appreciated that we weren't the center of their entertainment. Thank you to our anonymous benefactor.

We were standing in the middle of the square and I got a funny feeling we were "on stage." There were several hundred Chinese "around" the square but we were alone in the center of a large circle of paving stones. At this point a Chinese man came running to us and ushered us to the edge of the square. Moments later, just on the hour, the circle where we had been standing erupted in an enormous fountain. Multiple jets of water, keyed to music drew laughter and applause from the crowd, including us. Everyone around the square seemed to appreciate the show, and we certainly appreciated that we weren't the center of their entertainment. Thank you to our anonymous benefactor.

Next day we spent the morning in the center of Old Shanghai at the Yu Gardens and Bizarre. This was a very pretty, classical Chinese garden, originally built in 1557. During our trip we visited several others but the photo to the left was one of my favorites. I was surprised how popular and crowded the gardens were. There were few westerners but the gardens must be in all the local Chinese guidebooks as a must-see destination.

These two "cityscape" photos were taken in the Bizarre next to the Gardens and are part of what I call my "Where's Waldo" series. While they are typical street scenes, they each contain an American icon which seems out of place. Can you find them? One thing you'll notice is that there are almost no westerners in these photos. Throughout China I was struck by how few western tourists we saw. I came to believe that China is counting heavily on the upcoming Olympics to bring significant numbers of visitors to China; part of their efforts to join the world's society.

These two "cityscape" photos were taken in the Bizarre next to the Gardens and are part of what I call my "Where's Waldo" series. While they are typical street scenes, they each contain an American icon which seems out of place. Can you find them? One thing you'll notice is that there are almost no westerners in these photos. Throughout China I was struck by how few western tourists we saw. I came to believe that China is counting heavily on the upcoming Olympics to bring significant numbers of visitors to China; part of their efforts to join the world's society.

China is the platonic ideal of a demographic catastrophe unfolding. With a population of 1.3 Billion people, the youngest segments of the population are pushing the older segments out of jobs and into a forced regimen of leisure. To china's credit, it seems to be doing a good job of providing community centers that serve as a social and creative outlets for the new elderly leisure class. We visited one of these "senior centers" in Shanghai and had a chance to learn a bit about traditional Chinese art in the process. Visits such as this inevitably begin with tea ... boiling water poured over loose tea leaves in a porcelain cup with a lid to keep it warm. The panels to the left are traditional Chinese paintings. They were beautifully done. As always, you can click on the thumbnails to the left to see an expanded view. Even the expanded views doesn't truly do their beauty justice but I think they are worth a look. Another thing we learned, all such visits (and we had many) lead through the gift shop to the exit. And in the gift shop I quickly learned that every thing in China is for sale. And I learned that fierce, competitive capitalism is alive and well in China ... at least in-the-small. More on this in due course.

These panels are traditional Chinese paintings. They were beautifully done. The photo doesn't truly do their beauty justice but I think they are worth a look. Another thing we learned, all such visits (and we had many) lead through the gift shop to the exit. And in the gift shop I quickly learned that every thing in China is for sale. And I learned that fierce, competitive capitalism is alive and well in China ... at least in-the-small. More on this in due course.

These panels are traditional Chinese paintings. They were beautifully done. The photo doesn't truly do their beauty justice but I think they are worth a look. Another thing we learned, all such visits (and we had many) lead through the gift shop to the exit. And in the gift shop I quickly learned that every thing in China is for sale. And I learned that fierce, competitive capitalism is alive and well in China ... at least in-the-small. More on this in due course.

These panels are traditional Chinese paintings. They were beautifully done. The photo doesn't truly do their beauty justice but I think they are worth a look. Another thing we learned, all such visits (and we had many) lead through the gift shop to the exit. And in the gift shop I quickly learned that every thing in China is for sale. And I learned that fierce, competitive capitalism is alive and well in China ... at least in-the-small. More on this in due course.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the morning we spent in the Shanghai Museum. The guidebooks describe the museum as a collection of 120,000 pieces displaying some of the best cultural relics from the Chinese Neolithic period up to the Qing dynasty, a period of 5,000 years. They had a beautiful collection of Chinese calligraphy. Now, I don't read Chinese and I certainly don't read classical Chinese. But these were beautiful on a level that transcended the meaning of the words that were recorded. Unlike the monastic calligraphy you'd seen in Europe, in the Book of Kells for example, the red chops preserve the identity of the scribes that applied ink to paper. In my view, they only enhance the interest of these scrolls.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the morning we spent in the Shanghai Museum. The guidebooks describe the museum as a collection of 120,000 pieces displaying some of the best cultural relics from the Chinese Neolithic period up to the Qing dynasty, a period of 5,000 years. Other highlight of the museum were the Shang bronzes, the Jade Gallery, an exhibit of Celadon wares and an exhibit of Sancai pottery figures. I am a reasonable intelligent guy but I realized how little I knew about the cultural and artistic traditions of China. It seems to me there is much here to be admired. The exhibits were lovingly presented and very well lit. All these photos were shot hand-held without flash (which is forbidden in most Chinese museums).

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the morning we spent in the Shanghai Museum. The guidebooks describe the museum as a collection of 120,000 pieces displaying some of the best cultural relics from the Chinese Neolithic period up to the Qing dynasty, a period of 5,000 years. Other highlight of the museum were the Shang bronzes, the Jade Gallery, an exhibit of Celadon wares and an exhibit of Sancai pottery figures. I am a reasonable intelligent guy but I realized how little I knew about the cultural and artistic traditions of China. It seems to me there is much here to be admired. The exhibits were lovingly presented and very well lit. All these photos were shot hand-held without flash (which is forbidden in most Chinese museums).

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the morning we spent in the Shanghai Museum. The guidebooks describe the museum as a collection of 120,000 pieces displaying some of the best cultural relics from the Chinese Neolithic period up to the Qing dynasty, a period of 5,000 years. Other highlight of the museum were the Shang bronzes, the Jade Gallery, an exhibit of Celadon wares and an exhibit of Sancai pottery figures. I am a reasonable intelligent guy but I realized how little I knew about the cultural and artistic traditions of China. It seems to me there is much here to be admired. The exhibits were lovingly presented and very well lit. All these photos were shot hand-held without flash (which is forbidden in most Chinese museums).

Near the end of our visit, we came upon an exhibit which illustrated how a lot of the pottery was originally crafted. From my perspective, there wasn't anything really noteworthy here, but I liked the composition of the photo I took. So bear with me, okay?

We traveled about an hour from the center of Shanghai to a place called Zhujiajio. This isn't in any guide book I can find. While there we visited KeZhi Garden, another classic Chinese garden, but the highlight for me was to spend the rest of the day in "water town." This is a small city built along the canal system of China and it reminded me very much of Venice, Italy. While we were there we boarded canal boats and rode through the living history of rural China in a way that reminded of Sherman and Peabody and their "Way Back Machine."

We traveled about an hour from the center of Shanghai to a place called Zhujiajio. This isn't in any guide book I can find. While there we visited KeZhi Garden, another classic Chinese garden, but the highlight for me was to spend the rest of the day in "water town." This is a small city built along the canal system of China and it reminded me very much of Venice, Italy. While we were there we boarded canal boats and rode through the living history of rural China in a way that reminded of Sherman and Peabody and their "Way Back Machine."

We traveled about an hour from the center of Shanghai to a place called Zhujiajio. This isn't in any guide book I can find. While there we visited KeZhi Garden, another classic Chinese garden, but the highlight for me was to spend the rest of the day in "water town." This is a small city built along the canal system of China and it reminded me very much of Venice, Italy. While we were there we boarded canal boats and rode through the living history of rural China in a way that reminded of Sherman and Peabody and their "Way Back Machine."

At one point we came upon a woman standing by the side of the canal who had just chopped the head off a chicken and was bleeding it out. It took a little while after that to face a Chinese meal featuring chicken in any form. When we left the boat we wandered through the streets and in and out of shops. We haggled over and eventually bought a few souvenir gifts for our children, marveled at street vendors selling marvelously exotic food and finally settled down to a nice lunch in a local restaurant.

Thinking about the headless chicken and thinking about the food stalls we saw, ... all through lunch I'm thinking "I'm going to get SO sick!" But we were hungry. The food was tasty. The restaurant was clean. I successfully put the full accounting of where lunch might have come from out of my mind ... and enjoyed it. And no, none of us got sick!

Thinking about the headless chicken and thinking about the food stalls we saw, ... all through lunch I'm thinking "I'm going to get SO sick!" But we were hungry. The food was tasty. The restaurant was clean. I successfully put the full accounting of where lunch might have come from out of my mind ... and enjoyed it. And no, none of us got sick!

Next day we took the train to Suzhou, about an hour from Shanghai. We visited a 1,000 year old garden (World Heritage site) that had been restored in the 18th century. We also visited a "silk factory." This was pretty much what the name implies. Here, they take silk worm cocoons, find the end of the silk thread and unwind them. Each cocoon has a single strand about 2/3 of a mile long. Using equipment that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of, the silk threads are unwound, woven together to form stronger thicker threads, dyed, and then woven into silk fabric; stretched and pulled to form the batting in silk quilts; tied to form silk carpets and so on. It is a fascinating business and a closet engineer's fantasy to visit the factory. As we were leaving Suzhou, my cultural preconceptions got a whack on the side of the head when I learned this was a city of 6-8 million people. That would make it about the same size as, say, San Francisco. Yet there was no structure taller than a few stories. No metro. No airport. Welcome to rural China! This is fascinating ... I am glad we've come.

Next day we took the train to Suzhou, about an hour from Shanghai. We visited a 1,000 year old garden (World Heritage site) that had been restored in the 18th century. We also visited a "silk factory." This was pretty much what the name implies. Here, they take silk worm cocoons, find the end of the silk thread and unwind them. Each cocoon has a single strand about 2/3 of a mile long. Using equipment that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of, the silk threads are unwound, woven together to form stronger thicker threads, dyed, and then woven into silk fabric; stretched and pulled to form the batting in silk quilts; tied to form silk carpets and so on. It is a fascinating business and a closet engineer's fantasy to visit the factory. As we were leaving Suzhou, my cultural preconceptions got a whack on the side of the head when I learned this was a city of 6-8 million people. That would make it about the same size as, say, San Francisco. Yet there was no structure taller than a few stories. No metro. No airport. Welcome to rural China! This is fascinating ... I am glad we've come.

Our last stop in Shanghai was unplanned, a whim really. We stopped in at the Urban Planning Exhibition. Inside was a scale model of the city of Shanghai. To my eye it was "perfect." By that I mean it featured an anatomically correct street map of Shanghai. Upon it were constructed model buildings that seemed to exactly resemble the real building we had been walking among. We could see the Bund, Pudong, the park across from our hotel and all the signature building we had been admiring. In fact, we could even see our hotel (circled in the second photo) and the street we walked down to a restaurant last evening. It was perfect! I got to thinking, "how do they keep it up to date?" And then I began to notice the model had buildings that hadn't been built yet (the Expo site for example). And then it hit me; this wasn't modeled after the city; the city was being built based on the plan represented in the model ... hence the name, Urban Planning Exhibition! This is the power of a centrally planned economy and dictatorial rule. Hmm ... Another cultural whack on the side of the head ... one of many to come. They have also built a 3D computer model of the city and you can fly through it at Virtual World also located in the Urban Planning Exhibition. This is a spherical theatre with 360 degree moving images as though you were in a helicopter banking, turning and flying through the real Shanghai. Recommended, unless you're prone to motion sickness.

Our last stop in Shanghai was unplanned, a whim really. We stopped in at the Urban Planning Exhibition. Inside was a scale model of the city of Shanghai. To my eye it was "perfect." By that I mean it featured an anatomically correct street map of Shanghai. Upon it were constructed model buildings that seemed to exactly resemble the real building we had been walking among. We could see the Bund, Pudong, the park across from our hotel and all the signature building we had been admiring. In fact, we could even see our hotel (circled in the second photo) and the street we walked down to a restaurant last evening. It was perfect! I got to thinking, "how do they keep it up to date?" And then I began to notice the model had buildings that hadn't been built yet (the Expo site for example). And then it hit me; this wasn't modeled after the city; the city was being built based on the plan represented in the model ... hence the name, Urban Planning Exhibition! This is the power of a centrally planned economy and dictatorial rule. Hmm ... Another cultural whack on the side of the head ... one of many to come. They have also built a 3D computer model of the city and you can fly through it at Virtual World also located in the Urban Planning Exhibition. This is a spherical theatre with 360 degree moving images as though you were in a helicopter banking, turning and flying through the real Shanghai. Recommended, unless you're prone to motion sickness.