Update from Shanghai

Photos: High Rise apartments in Shanghai (TOP) and Carlos in front of the Shanghai Museum


Saturday October 17, 2009

Today was a wonderful day for me. We started out the morning with a more traditional breakfast, including meat dumplings, spring rolls, cooked cabbage, and so forth. It was great. After breakfast, the choir members went to rehearse all day long, and the rest of us went down town. First we went to the Shanghai museum. We had less than two hours there, and I certainly could have spent five to six hours. There was a bronze collection from ancient China, dating from the 18th through the 3rd century BC. Then on display was an amazing historical coin collection, dating from 475 BC. I didn’t realize that any societies had used coins that long ago. Some of the coins looked nothing like what we think of as coins, but looked more like hand weapons. I can image those ones being used as such when there was a dispute over payment. We then had the best food I have had so far. It was typical Shanghai food, very little in difference from some of the Chines food we have at home, but I think it tasted better than anything such food that I have eaten before. And the bonus is that I don’t feel like I have an MSG hangover. After that, we went to the French Square (I think that was what I heard it being called. Don’t know why, as the Mandarin name for it translates to “new ward.” It was mostly a posh yuppie hang out, with coffee shops, a few restaurants, movie theater, and most important of all, a Cold Stone Creamery. Yes, that’s right, I stopped and spent money there, in order to help make sure that multi-national companies like that are able to continue to thrive.

In the “New Ward” area is the first meeting place of the Communist Party. It seems to have been turned into a small museum, dedicated to that meeting. I did not have a chance to go in, because after we left the Shanghai Museum, we sat in the bus and waited for about 40 minutes for two ladies who failed to show up at the appointed time. I would have liked to have seen it, especially in light of the recent 60th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution.

I am now debating whether or not to go to dinner before going to the choral festival performance tonight. We just had lunch, and are now scheduled for an early dinner. I usually do not gain weight on vacation, but this time just might be the exception to the rule.

Did you know that there is no word in Mandarin to say “YES”? That seems so strange to me, but yes, it’s true. Apparently one way to answer yes, is to say the “to be” verb, such as “IS” or to simply repeat the verb back when the answer is yes, for example, if someone asks me if I am running, to say yes, I would say “running.”

I would never drive here. I learned that it used to take about two years to get a driver license, with several steps involved. Now, someone can get a license in about one week if they take an intensive course (60 hours). One needs to be 18 to drive, but there is no age restriction on buying and consuming alcohol. Interesting.

I hope to later include a photo of some of the houses that were built in the 1950's, that are quickly disappearing in order to make was for the apartment buildings. And these apartment buildings range from a few stories high to about 50 stories. There must be thousands of people in some of the larger buildings. Luckily the law requires buildings that are more than seven stories high to have elevators. Most of the tall buildings here are not office buildings, but are apartments.

The weather is great. Its mildly warm with a comfortable level of humidity. A light breeze blowing in off the ocean. The only negative is the smog. We have blue sky today, but there is a thick brown haze, making visibility some what low. Not very many people wear masks over their faces to help filter out the smog, but some do.

I went for a walk, and skipped dinner. I only about a block and a half from here is a very large park with a man made lake in the middle. You would never know that it is there unless you happened to stumble upon it. A woman from the trip told me it was there. I walked around, saw people fishing, saw kites in the sky, people walking, people playing some type of board game, similar to seeing people playing chess in the park. One large difference stands out. For obvious reasons, there are only a few children walking through the park with their parents. If there is time in the morning, I think I will walk through the park to watch people do their morning Ti Chi.

I went to the Shanghai Choral Festival opening concert tonight. There were a couple of local groups, then about three Chinese minority performance groups, a quartet from Sweden, a small chorus from Italy, a interesting small group from Germany, and the Souther Utah Heritage Choir from Utah, USA. All of the groups did very well. When the foreign groups sang in Mandarin, the crowd seemed very pleased. The concert was in a very new concert hall, which was extremely nice.

October 19, 2009

WOW, yesterday (October 18th)was so busy that I just didn’t have time to write. Yesterday was not just busy, but also awesome. The choir had to go early to rehearsal for their concert. The concert was held at the Shanghai concert hall, and that building in and of itself is interesting. As I noted, Shanghai is in constant construction, mostly with apartments and roads. The road by the concert hall needed to be expanded, so rather than tear down the hall, they moved it about 17 meters away from the new road. It is good to see that a few historical places are being preserved.

The concert was really good. As part of the festival, each of the many groups have their own concerts, but they will be on other places and other days during the week. Being that our choir is the largest, our concert was the very next day after the opening ceremonies. The performance was not quite a sell out, but close. The choir sang two well known, traditional songs, and the audience really loved it. I gather that it is traditional for the audience to be included in singing part of “Same Song.” The comments were that the choir was understandable when they sang their songs in Mandarin. The choir did not have seats on their risers, so they had about one and one-half hour of practice with little time to sit, then standing for pictures, then standing for the nearly two hour concert. One lady on front row of the choir passed out about 2/3rds of the way through. Her companions on both sides caught her, she finished the song after her friends held her up, then she left the stage for a while. She did come back after about 20 minutes, and the crowd gave an enthusiastic applause upon seeing her back and well.

While the choir was rehearsing, we the “groupies” or as I like to refer to us, the “lackeys,” went to the Buddhist Jade temple. I was a Sunday, meaning more than anything, a day off from work, so there were many people there. It was an interesting cultural education. People there buy incense to burn, which they use for prayer to the gods in each direction and to the Buddhist statutes. The reason it is called the Jade Temple is that there is a jade statue of Buddha, that, if I recall correctly, is about 9 feet high and made of solid jade. People are not allowed to touch it, and photos of it were not allowed. In the center plaza of the temple is where people light incense, and there are two free standing fire chimneys on stands in the plaza, which people throw gold paper “money” and incense into, in order to receive blessings. Of course the incense and gold paper must be purchased inside; it is a way to help keep the temple open.

After the concert, we went back to the Jinsha Hotel for lunch. The food was again served in family style manner, but the food was still not as good at the food at the Bund Hotel. After lunch, we went to a tourist trap market. I refrained from buying anything except an ice cream cone from Kentucky Fried Chicken (there are KFC’s everywhere). Mom bought a few things, but it took about 25 minutes just to get down into a reasonable price range for a few sets of chop sticks. We had dozens of people try to sell us watches and I-pods and I-phones, and others trying to sell pens with laser pointers. The watch and I-Pod sellers just had a little fold out paper with their wares, I assume so that they could take you back to their stash without having to carry it all around with them. Five watches for 100 Yuan??? Genuine fake Rolex and other brands.

After that, we were scheduled to go back to the Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I wanted none of that. This was actually the first time we were scheduled to go to the restaurant, but because of the prior double booking at the motel, it became the second, and now I knew better. Once we got to the restaurant, Mom and I took off to do a little exploring. We didn’t go far, wandering down a street that had many restaurant. It was hard to chose which one to go to, but I picked one that had noodle soup. After looking at the menu, I was ready to order the noodles with bullfrog, but Mom was a little less daring that in times of old. So I picked a seafood noodle soup and then we decided on a second seafood plate that also ended up being a soup, but with no noodles. It had a variety of sealife (all dead of course), and tripe. In Mexico, I never had developed a taste for tripe, but in the last few years, I have come to appreciate it (mostly the texture, as it has no real taste that I can tell). Well, we had to pick somewhere. The food was interesting and was tasty, but in retrospect, I think I we would have like something with more vegetables in it. The people at the little restaurant were kind. I tried to say, “no drink tea” but I could tell I just wasn’t getting the tone right on “drink.” But I was still able to get the message across, and they took the tea away. I did ask for water... well, I said “water” so she brought me a glass of hot water. I presume that they maybe did not have bottled water, so they show that it is drinkable by serving it very hot. After that we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel, where I packed and got a few short hours of sleep. It wasn’t hard to get a cab. There is no negotiating involved, as they have a meter, which even prints out receipts. The cab ride back was less than five bucks.

One thing that is very different is that, as I understand it, tipping is not generally done. So I didn’t leave a tip at the restaurant and did not tip the cabby, and didn’t get any dirty looks or anything. It just feels odd.

This morning I got up about a quarter to six, so I would have enough time to take a short walk in the park down the street. I still find it very interesting that the rather large park is so well hidden. In the mornings many of the nearby residents congregate in the park in many different groups to do their ti chi. Many of them wear a traditional silky looking outfit to do it in. Most of the Ti Chi - ers are of retirement age (which is 55 years old as I understand it) but many are not. I understand that people often go do that before heading out to work. One woman and a few men were off doing something else that really caught my attention. In fact, I am determined not to leave China without one of the apparatuses that they were using. Imagine, if you will, two small poles or sticks of about 1 ½ feet long, connected by several feet of twine (ten feet or more?). Then an apparatus that reminds me of a large child’s top (the toy that spins on the floor). The top is balanced so that the large bottom part is counter-weighted by the long, skinny end. This is then spun in the air by wrapping the twine around it, then balanced and tossed about while the person does what I might call ti-chi speeded way up, stepping gracefully around and threw the twine. It seems like a mild exercise, and a wonderful way to relax and rejuvenate the mind. When I got to the park, I tried to take a little bit of video of the ti-chi people and the folks with the stings and tops, but as fate would have it (well fate, or simply a lack of having checked the meter) by camera battery went dead. I know that I have said that I really liked having a yard after seeing all of the thousands and thousands of apartments, but because of the dense population, gatherings for ti chi in the park seem to create a very sociable and interactive community, which is something we don’t have.

After the short stroll in the park, I went back for some breakfast. It was good, but was exactly the same as two days before, and possibly even the day before that for many (yesterday when I went to breakfast, I was directed into the coffee shop side, but most others in our group who went in after me were back into the banquet room side, and presumably the same foods as before). I do like the food. I especially like the black, swishy things in with the cauliflower (same thing that is in hot and sour soup in the Chinese restaurants at home), and the cabbage, and the steamed bread with meat inside. It is so good, but a little variety in food is also a welcome thing. After that we hopped on the bus and headed for the Pudong airport. We boarded our Airbus A320-214 plane on time, but for some reason we were about a half hour late for take off. As I write this now, we are in the air, with a little bit of turbulence, which makes it a little harder to type, and should be getting close to our decent into Xi’an. I am looking forward to seeing the Terra Cotta soldiers tomorrow.