I have no idea why at the end of the trip, just like when I came in '04, you end up in Shanghai. It is busy, quite citified, and very westernized. Last time, I thought I must have missed something because I was so over being in China for three weeks in 100 degree heat, and this time too I was left wondering if I missed anything, but I am not sure I did.
We left the school at 5:30AM, not without tears from some of the kids, some kids who had stayed up with host brothers and sisters half the night and no breakfast. There was supposed to be stricter restrictions on the baggage allowance at the airport, but the girl checking us in didn't care. My carry on was supposed be a certain weight as well, but the security guard at the x-ray belt just said, "It's heavy for you!" I had to have the magic wand passed over me (and I REALLY wanted to click my heels together and say there's no place like home, there's no place like home and wake up with friends and animals around me) because I set off the metal detector. I got to stand on a cylindrical pedestal like at a gown fitting when they did this, too. It wasn't that much fun. Part of the problem was my money clip and the other was my pedometer which I had to explain. Maybe it looked like a timer of some sort. My suitcase was underweight, but set off a siren. I think it was a clock inside with the Chairman on it. We just got waved on.
I also had a slight food emergency in the airport, and ended up paying some ridiculous amount for a pre-made egg and ham sandwich on white bread with cucumber and a V8. It wasn't all that bad. I'm glad I ate it because I slept through what I think was a slightly frightening breakfast on the plane.
We were met at the airport by our guide, Shirley, and taken to a restaurant we ate at in '04 with elephants in it. Well, not real elephants. The restaurant looked a lot more worn than last time, but there was a floor show with dancing and drumming, performed in a somewhat desultory manner by, I think, the same people who worked the tables. We were the only people in the place who clapped for it.
I will make this aside for movie buffs out there. This will not make a lot of sense to all you intellectuals, most likely, so you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. Our guide has a Chinese name, but told us, "Just call me Shirley." This has created a raft of jokes based on or stolen from the movie "Airplane." That "film" has been quoted and re-quoted for a couple days now. The first thing said, of course was "Stop calling me Shirley." But it has gotten progressively "worse" and repetitive. The other strange thing is that my sub at SHS has the same name as the "star" of that movie Airplane. Now some of the kids are going on about this because of our guide's name. Funny huh? Hopefully our plane will only be arriving at only one gate in Boston. ;)
ANYWAY, we saw some things in Shanghai over a couple of days: the TV tower, which was big and touristy. Y got an earful there from a Chinese woman who thought she cut her in line. At first, this was about how "foreigners" have no rights in China, then Y corrected her, and said she was Chinese. Then the woman went on about how Chinese living in America have no status in China anymore, who did she think she was, etc. It was ugly. The woman was really raving for about 10 minutes as we snaked our way around the lines to get on the high speed elevators to the top of this thing. Her daughter started crying. I felt sorry for her. Y stayed cool.
That first night we saw an acrobat show which was great. Lots of balancing -- about 8 people high on chairs, plate spinning, juggling, as well as old school clown type stuff with see saws and flipping through the air. There was also a magician who did a legerdemain act with cards and scarves which I had a lot of respect for. There was also a silly bit about knife throwing that was a cheesy comedy routine. There is more real comedy at our department meetings at school than that little skit provided. There was an interesting combination of music throughout the acts that included beautiful flute music, hip hop and other stuff. Some of the juggling and see saw stuff included modern dance moves as well. It was fun, and the auditorium was full of a bunch of white people. I have not seen that many Caucasians in one place since we left home, no joke.
At breakfast the next morning, a man started yelling at one of the staff because they told him he wasn't supposed to smoke in the breakfast room. He chain smoked anyway. Then when we went downstairs to catch the bus, he started yelling again, and included in his remarks that the rules of the hotel trying to oppress him was as bad as "what the Americans were trying to do in Beijing." That said no doubt for our benefit. Nice.
After this display, we went to the Shanghai museum in the morning, and had to wait around for a little bit because we "weren't on the list."Apparently you couldn't get in as a group unless you were on a special list. Our guide straightened that out, and we got in eventually. I had been talking to a Canadian woman who was on her own teaching in China. In retrospect, I think she was trying to get in line with us, then when it was clear we were not being successful, she just ran ahead and put herself with another group for entry without so much as a goodbye or anything. Clearly she has learned the Chinese way of doing things.
The museum was too much for some of the kids, and they hung out in the tea room there for most of it. Others, though, checked out the museum and seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed seeing it again. We were fairly early and it is a huge place, so I could see what I wanted easily. I spent a lot of time looking at the huge diorama of Ancient Greece as it would be set up for the Olympics, a special exhibit, and looking at paintings and calligraphy. The May Day holiday meant a lot of Chinese people from different class backgrounds were in the museum and it was interesting to see the variety of people.
After lunch, we went to this huge shopping place -- three floors of it -- that sold everything from knock off Rolexes to Buddha statues. I walked through and got so tired of being assaulted by people selling things, that I went out the back door and wandered down the street for a while. I went into a neighborhood that was really for locals, and people-watched and took pictures. It was quite festive there with lots of food being cooked outside and people walking around. Much more interesting than the giant souvenir place.
We then went to the Bund, which I was leery of. The Bund is an esplanade along the waterfront where if you look across the river, you can see the modern buildings and if you look across the street in the opposite direction, you can see the older western buildings that really show the colonization that occurred in Shanghai. (The Party TV channel that night showed a very good program about the westernization of China, from the nationalist perspective of course.) Shanghai can best be described still as an international city. The Bund was mobbed as it was mobbed in '04. However, we still managed to get a look at the river and the giant barges. We also spent some time in a beautiful tea shop where a lovely lady in a pretty outfit poured us a couple different types of tea. Several of us bought some, including me. I had to give my tea away when I left Xi'an because I simply had no way to carry it given the alleged baggage restrictions. It was a beautiful tea shop selling beautiful tea and because we sat through her lecture/demonstration, we got a good discount, actually. And after that, supper.
The food in Shanghai was really god awful. All of it. Even y didn't really like it. Some of the boys chomped away at some of it though. I actually missed chili peppers in everything because it would have had some flavor to it. It was also extremely oily and/or deep fried. I gave up eating at meals except for rice, although at breakfast I found some toast. When we got back to the hotel, I wandered around on the street to take some video footage of the night market there, but also to buy some fruit.
Our street was a little sketchy, so I didn't stay out very long. The bar nearby played "Scarborough Fair", not sung by S & G, though, as well as "Vincent" (aka "starry Starry Night") sung by some woman with a nice voice, but they played these tunes over and over. You could hear them quite clearly in the room. The street had vendors selling the usual Chinese stuff, but the most interesting and sad were the live fish swimming in shallow tubs awaiting their fate. There were flounder,those fish that look like fish,skates, abalone,small sharks, shrimps, a big variety of fish, really, plus some chickens and snakes in cages in case seafood wasn't your thing. However, I just purchased some bananas, a peach and something I am not sure about. It needs to be peeled, which is delaying me.
The room was nice and clean didn't smell weird, so that was a great change from Xi'an. Also, surprisingly, there is less air pollution in Shanghai. Shanghai has a lot of neon, and reminded me of Tokyo in that way. Still, maybe I am missing something. It would be interesting to come through here again -- maybe -- without a group to deal with or be a part of and look for something else. Maybe.
Next stop, Tongli Village and Suzhou.
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