Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai in the early morning, and after a diplomatic briefing and customs we were finally allowed to leave after lunch. Shanghai was different from the other ports because it was actually up a river a fair distance, whereas the other places were docked near the ocean. We were surrounded on all sides by shiny skyscrapers, all looking very modern. I was very excited to visit because we arrived in the middle of the New Year’s celebrations.

 

Four friends and I set out to explore the city. I had heard of a ferry that went across the river for only 30 cents, so we found that and took it. After some confusion we realized that we were still not on the side of the river we wanted! Shanghai has two rivers that cut through and meet roughly perpendicularly so there are really three areas of the city. We then took a bus to a main area near the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is an oddly shaped building that is tall and skinny except for some bigger spherical parts. It kind of reminded me of a strand of beads, except most of the beads had fallen off. Anyway, it was pretty crazy around the tower; I guess a lot of Chinese families enjoy their New Year’s days off by touring the sites. There was also a huge street food market which had some things that looked delicious and others that looked (and smelled) pretty questionable. One smell in particular really stuck out and smelled horrible, like rotting meat mixed with wet tennis shoes or something. I found out later that it was fermented tofu. We figured out that to get where we wanted we should take the metro, so we fought through throngs of people to get onto the subway. The Japanese are all about order and politeness, but the Chinese will cut you in line, elbow you to get on the subway, and overall be in your personal space. While we were waiting to get our tickets, a man blatantly cut in front of us to get his ticket first. Then when we boarded the metro, we had to barrel in like linebackers because everyone was shoving so much.

 

We got off at Nanjing Road, a famous Shanghai street, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking from one end to the other. We were getting pretty hungry but we found this delicious hot pot restaurant on the seventh floor of a building. The style of hot pot dictates that you cook everything from meat balls to mushrooms yourself in a boiling pot of broth, not unlike fondue with more options. It was very tasty. We also found this foods market that had dried chicken, heads still attached, and smelly fish parts. At the end of the street, we found the Jing’an temple that was pretty to look at even though it was closed. It was very different from all the Japanese temples I saw because Shanghai is a very modern city; it was no more than a fishing village until Westerners opened it for trade. Accordingly, the temple was modern and also surrounded by neon-florescent lit shops, which seemed peculiar. However, the places we went in no way compared just to seeing all the people—the streets were PACKED. Also, places had red lanterns and decorations strung up everywhere to welcome the New Year, it was very festive.

 

We took a taxi back to the ship and were shocked to find it only cost about three dollars! Total! We vowed to use this form of transportation from then on because the public transportation was too confusing. However, there is definitely something to be said for getting lost in a city. After resting for a bit on the ship and dropping my stuff off in my room, I went with a few other friends to the tallest tower in Shanghai. It had some great views of the city - there were lots of skyscrapers with tons of flashy lights. After taking in the view we all stopped for ice cream at Haagen Daaz (not exactly Chinese, but it was the only thing open) and then returned to the ship for bed.

 

After the craziness of the first day in Shanghai I decided to do an SAS trip to have everything taken care of. The trip went to Suzhou, a town famous for its gardens, silk, and canals, about an hour and a half away. The tour began at 7 am where about fifty of us loaded into two buses and headed off. Our tour guide was great, she told us a lot of stories especially about the new year. For example, they always serve the entire fish on a plate, and then spin it on the middle of the table and wherever the fish head is pointing at the end is the person who has to pay for the meal. She also told us some interesting things about Chinese society with the communist system. For example, until 1997 housing was generally free, but then the government decided to make people pay for their apartments after that. Also, they were only allowed property rights for seventy years, when the place would return to the hands of the government. It was bizarre how authoritarian leadership like that could so drastically and quickly change the way a whole society operated. Our guide reminded us though that the will of the government was like a “face of a baby”—it quickly changes.

 

Our first stop on the tour was the Humble Administrator Garden. These “gardens” are different than what we would think of as a garden, they are heavily landscaped and actually places where officials would live for part of the year or after they retired to relax. You can tell the rank of the official by the height of the threshold; the higher you have to step up, the higher the ranking. Another interesting thing our guide told us was that when they entertained company they would adjust the threshold based on the relative ranking. In other words, if a higher ranked official visited the threshold would be removed but if a lower ranked officer came the threshold would be higher. The gardens all have four elements: mountains, water, a certain type of tree, and stones (I think). They also are arranged with the main pond in the middle, a place for women on one side and a place for men on the other. Everything was very consciously constructed in accordance with feng shui. Like the cities, the gardens were crowded with tourists, even though we got there before nine.

 

Directly after the Humble Administrator garden we visited the Suzhou Museum. It was beautifully designed and had a pond in the middle much like the one in the garden we had just visited, except more modern of course. We saw pottery and bronze castings from over 3,000 years ago, it was crazy!

 

After the museum we luckily had enough time to visit the silk factory, which may have ended up being my favorite part of the day. We got to see the whole process, from sorting out the cocoons to retrieving the silk threads from the cocoon to wetting and stretching the strands to make them useable. The neatest thing to me was how close we were able to get to everything—we could literally walk up right next to the machine and the workers close enough to touch. Much different than factory tours in the US! After the factory tour there was an extensive gift shop, of course, which seemed like a pretty good ploy but oh well.

 

We had lunch at a hotel lazy susan style. I particularly enjoyed the egg drop soup, a beef dish, and some mysterious green vegetables that tasted fantastic even though I didn’t really know what they were. They two weirdest things were definitely the mandarin fish, with the head and everything on the plate, and the jellyfish. We weren’t told the true identity of the jellyfish until after we ate it; I just assumed it was some type of chewy slimy noodle.

 

After lunch we went to another garden, this one was much smaller than the first one we visited. It was called the Garden of the Master of Nets and apparently part of it is reproduced in New York’s Metropolitian Museum of Art. While there, we stumbled upon a girl playing a traditional Chinese instrument with lots of strings that sat on the floor. There were also some fish in the pond that several Chinese families were feeding, which was very cute. The pond also had along some colorful Mandarin Ducks. They are famous for being the only animal in China to have a lifelong mate. Our guide told us that young women would stitch mandarin ducks into their pillows in order to wish for a good husband.

 

Our next stop was a canal ride, which although short, explained why Suzhou is sometimes referred to as Oriental Venice. The canal system was very similar to Venice’s, except of course you would not see so many red paper lanterns in Italy! Our last stop was the Lingering Garden. By this point, we had all learned the characteristics of Chinese gardens and could recognize all of the elements ourselves.

 

We arrived back to the boat after dark, so I decided to have dinner on the ship. Our guide had advised us to stay up for the fireworks at midnight, but I was too tired to make it that long so I napped until 11:30 and then went out to see the fireworks. They were not the biggest or fanciest fireworks I have ever seen but they were remarkable in that they came from everywhere and were so close to all of the buildings. They were to celebrate the return of God of Wealth to Earth on the beginning of the fifth day, so everyone would buy fireworks to set off themselves for the occasion. It was magical to watch, especially since we were on the river and could see it reflected over the water. Also I realized half way through that all of the typical lights on all of the buildings were turned off to celebrate the occasion.

 

My last day in Shanghai, I met up with my friend Jessica from U21. Her dad picked me and my friend Charlotte up and drove us around some famous places in Shanghai, including the Bund area, which had imposing French buildings which mainly holds banks nowadays, and a bridge where we could see the site of the 2010 World Expo. I haven’t mentioned this before but Shanghai was ramping up for the Expo that will be held from May to October I believe. The logo for the event, a blue thing that reminded me of the Kool-Aid man (Jessica told me later that the design is based off of the Chinese character for “people”) was everywhere, from billboards to stuffed replicas sold semi-legally on the street. Also a lot of sidewalks were under construction so you could easily trip on a hole if you weren’t careful.

 

The most memorable part of the day was definitely when her dad took us to the place they used to live. I was struck most by the contrast between the apparently prosperous vision of Shanghai and the reality of their old residence. It had seemingly disordered shacks one on top of another with laundry hanging everywhere. The bathroom was a wooden pot that they emptied every so often, the shower was across the street, and the house only had two rooms, one downstairs and the other up a ladder. The total area was definitely smaller than the finished part of my basement. Jessica’s dad told us that he constructed the house himself, and did some innovative things like use the Styrofoam packaging they use in TV boxes as insulation for the roof. Jessica was also talking to an old woman in Chinese, and she told us afterward that the woman was alone for New Years and was talking about how she just wanted to die so her son didn't have responsibility for her any more. On top of everything, she had fallen during the New Year and was also starting to turn blind. But she still insisted that we take candy and peanuts as gifts.

 

Despite everything, the area had a definite sense of community, and I would say a dozen people came out of their homes to see us foreigners and talk with Jessica’s dad, since they were all old friends. I guess Jessica's dad is an example of the Shanghai economic miracle. Now he owns a car, a bigger house, and Jessica goes to a great school in Hong Kong. But still, the fact that I saw the poverty of where they used to live coupled with how welcoming they were made me think why so many people with so much more can be rude and ungrateful.

 

After visiting the neighborhood, Jessica’s dad dropped us off at the Shanghai museum. We focused on seeing the calligraphy and landscape paintings since we had seen some sculpture and pottery in Suzhou. I was amazed by all of the different styles of calligraphy; it ranged from looking like hieroglyphics to squiggles to me. Jessica explained that poets used the spacing and emphasis on certain characters to convey meaning in their works. I also loved the simplicity of the landscape paintings. Although they lacked rich color, their emphasis on line and attention to detail was incredible. As in Suzhou, we saw pieces dating at least to the 4^th century B.C., which I could not wrap my mind around at all. America’s 400-year history is just a fraction of China’s 4,000-year legacy!

 

In the afternoon we went to this crazy place called the Yu Gardens which had lots of bargaining shops. It was similarly as crowded as Nanjing Road of the first day, maybe even more so since the street was narrower. There was no way that everyone could fit on the sidewalks so many people walked in the streets. Every so often an ill-advised car would honk its way through the crowd. I was reminded of Belgium when we visited during the festival and the streets were a mass of people. We went into a tea house and had a tea tasting, same idea as wine tasting, and it was delicious! Plus the woman pouring it for us was also a student so she gave us a discount for being students too. We also did some shopping, and Jessica helped us get a fair price. But one vendor told Jessica in Chinese that "Chinese should be helping Chinese" which seemed to me to be pretty offensive. But apparently she'd taken foreigners around bargaining before and vendors have said similar things.

 

We had lunch at a famous dumpling restaurant where upon entering we saw a picture of Bill Clinton sitting at a table. Jessica picked some typical Chinese fare out for us. Some things, like the crab dumplings and this spicy peanut and bean dish were really good but others like a diamond-shaped sticky rice thing that had an aftertaste of cherry chapstick and a soybean dish that had the texture of a sponge and an even weirder taste were not my favorite.

 

Like we did to Jun, Charlotte and I questioned Jessica throughout the day. It was really interesting to talk to her about things like censorship and democracy. I guess her grandfather was part of the nationalist army so when the communist party took over they made him declare to the public that he was a horrible person every holiday. Now she says that her parents are part of the communist party but only because that is how you get promotions. She said that they talk about faults of the party only at family dinners, but would never think to question it in public demonstrations. I asked her if she would join the party and she said she didn’t know if she would be able to because when she was an exchange student in Canada she joined a Save Darfur group. Apparently, the party researches up on things like that and would find her involvement in the group against the party because a lot of the world criticizes the role China plays in the affair. China buys a lot of its oil from Sudan and sells Sudan’s government weapons, but refuses to acknowledge the genocide happening in Darfur. She said that the government takes the stance that “business is business” and uses that attitude to turn a blind eye to many issues. It's definitely a different world.

 

We stopped at a nearby temple where lots of people were paying homage to the god of wealth. Jessica left us to go eat dinner with her family and Charlotte and I went to a grocery to get some snacks. The store was confusing at first because we couldn’t find the food, all of the above-ground levels had clothes, electronics, appliances, really anything except for food. But we saw people checking out with food in their baskets so we knew it was there! We eventually figured out that the food was downstairs and you had to take a moving sidewalk (with a slight incline) to access it. After the store, we spent some more of our remaining money on milkshakes. Our cab ride home was the perfect distance—neither Charlotte nor I had any money left at the end of the day! We did have souvenirs, pictures, and memories of another awesome day.