Thursday, November 23
We woke at 7am (that would be 2pm the previous day, Seattle time, but we’re not thinking about that, remember?), alert (thanks to the No Jet Lag we took faithfully during our flights) and ready to go. I looked out the window of our hotel room. The air was clear on that first morning. The sun was coming up, the buildings were sparkling, it looked like a very busy town. There were fewer cars in the streets below than I had expected, and a great many more bicycles.
That day was the last time we saw a blue Chinese sky. On the rest of our trip the skies were smoggy. There were several foggy days and one rainy one. We didn’t ever feel inconvenienced by the weather, but that first day in Shanghai was the only one where it was really good.
Tap water is not drinkable in China, so the first cultural challenge for me was brushing my teeth. It’s hard to avoid using something that’s right there in front of you, like a perfectly good pair of faucet handles and a tap with water running out of it. I had a only a small amount of bottled water left. Brushing teeth in China is an acquired skill, but I am a fast learner. By the end of the trip I was able to brush my teeth and end up with a clean brush without using any tap water and without wasting any bottled water. It was one of my most satisfying learning experiences.
As I was writing this, I asked Art how he had managed with the tooth brushing. He said, “I used the tap water – all I was doing was rinsing out my mouth.” I shouldn’t have been surprised. He is a much greater risk-taker than I, and he’s never had an intestinal crisis while traveling.
The Shanghai Hotel provided a buffet breakfast on the second floor – a good selection of Chinese and Western offerings. I put a small helping of a couple of unknown kinds of beans on my plate and stuck to Western food for the rest of the breakfast. I am clumsy with chopsticks, so I selected a knife and fork. The beans were the best part of the breakfast! Art, food hound that he is, tried many things, even went back for seconds. He said he ate “very tasty stuff that I was unable to identify. “ The coffee was very good. The cream for the coffee was caramel colored. I was wary about eating strange or different foods that would make me sick, so I was careful what I ate at that first breakfast.
After breakfast the tour group – there were now 62 of us – piled into two buses for our scheduled half day of sightseeing. The buses headed for Old Town, where the Yu Garden is located. On the way we got our first daylight street-level view of Shanghai. I was struck by the similarities of this city to those in the West – many modern skyscrapers, hectic traffic, company logos such as “Hyatt” and “Canon”. There were many high-rise apartment buildings. From just about every window a horizontal rod was extended, and bed quilts or laundry were hanging out to air in the sun. Pretty interesting on a 40-story building!
Old Town reminded me of other Chinatown areas I’ve been to – in San Francisco and Vancouver, BC, for example. Lots of Chinese red trim, buildings with uptilted eves (so the soul will rise upward), many little shops selling souvenirs or food. Shari bought a dozen potstickers for 5 yuan (about 40 cents). They were like no other potstickers I had ever tasted – a wide, hot noodle wrapped around a tender piece of meet, salted just right. I could have eaten all 12, but I restrained myself from grabbing the whole container from Shari, settling for just two of the delicious snacks.
The Yu Garden is a fully restored classical Chinese garden. Work on the garden was begun in 1537 by a Ming official for his father. My reference book says:
For many Chinese, gardens were a microcosm in which the skilful gardener – who had to combine the qualities of a painter, poet, architect, and sculptor – could construct his own world using minerals, plants and animals in a confined space. Although the Yu Garden occupies less than two hectares (five acres), it seems far larger. The garden demonstrates perfectly the sophisticated art of combining several different elements to create a world in miniature – ingeniously mingling pavilions and corridors, small hills and carefully selected and placed rocks, lotus ponds with goldfish swimming in them, bridges, winding paths, trees and shrubs.
In the Yu Garden I experienced a downside of being part of a tour group. Half of our group, about 30 members, went through the garden together. David, the tour guide, was describing the garden, but his English was difficult to understand unless I was right next to him, listening carefully. And that was impossible, since there were so many of us. I had a guidebook, but the group was moving along fairly quickly, so I wasn’t free to linger or find a quiet place to sit and read and compare what I was reading and what I was seeing.
Besides, we were doing the tourist photography thing. My friend Shari is an enthusiastic picture taker. She likes to set up carefully for a picturesque shot of herself and her husband Bob, then direct me or Art to the exact spot from which the picture should be taken. Sometimes we change places so Art and I can then stand in the identical spot and Shari can take our picture. Or, now and then, the four of us arrange ourselves carefully and round up someone else to take the picture. (One fellow we selected dropped Shari’s camera.) All the pictures in a “shoot” might be taken from one camera, or one could be taken from Shari’s first and then one from ours. In any event, the cameras were busy recording our “We were here” experiences. So time spent pondering the artistry or beauty of the garden was simply not available.
Art has more memory of the interior of the garden – pretty typically, he doesn’t say much, but his visual memory is much better than mine, even long after we’ve come home from a trip. Here are his comments:
Inside the garden, there was a peaceful pool with rocks around. In the background, over the wall, was the contrast of skyscrapers in the busy city.
If I’d had an extra day in Shanghai, I’d have liked to return to the Yu Garden at a less busy time of day and spend some time going through it. As it is, we have to content ourselves with a packet of 10 postcards we bought of the place.
The garden was done mostly in soapstone. It was slippery in places, but would have really had more opaqueness and color to it if water had been running over the stones, from creeks or rain.
There were very few flowers out, since it was fall, but it was easy to see from the plants that it would have been beautiful when it was blooming in the spring – a “thousand-bloom garden”.
Most of the teahouses had been rebuilt. They had some of the original furniture, but we weren’t allowed to go in and manhandle it.
Some of the places in the garden had been headquarters for unsuccessful dissident communist groups. The knives and other articles were on display.
The other vivid recollection I have of Old Town is that, as we were coming out of the garden, looking across the square, we saw a Starbucks. I would have dashed over for a mocha, but – you guessed it – I had to stay with the tour group! I had already seen several KFC and McDonalds franchises, but I’m not a fan of either of those places. Making a quick getaway to Starbucks was very tempting.
Walking out of Old Town was like Carnieland with street vendors and hawkers. Art was even chased down at the bus by a fellow selling fake Rolex watches. Art made the mistake of stopping to look at the “come-on” watches, and even selected a watch he liked, but the vendor wouldn’t sell that one to him for a decent price. Art turned away and the man followed him. Even after Art was already seated in the bus, the man tapped on the window and waved, still trying to make a deal for the watches Art didn’t want. I told Art that he should just keep his mouth shut in strange countries!
Our next stop was the Bund. To us, it looked like a bunch of stuffy old European buildings, but it has a colorful past:
During Shanghai’s riotous heydey it was not only the city’s financial centre but also a hectic working harbour, where anything from tiny sailing junks to ocean-going freighters unloaded under the watch of British – and later American and Japanese – warships. Everything arrived here, from silk and tea to heavy industrial machinery, and amidst it all were the wealthy foreigners disembarking to pick their way to one of the grand hotels through crowds of beggars, hawkers, black marketeers, shoeshine boys and overladen coolies.
We went to the Bund because of its role in Shanghai’s history, but what I most remember are: a much-needed restroom; the Russian consulate which was guarded by roving guards; expressionless young men in uniform; and a park, where the docks used to be, with a gigantic statue of Chairman Mao.
Our final morning stop was at what our itinerary described as the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Center. We remember it as “the silk factory”. It actually was a fairly interesting tour, with workers weaving silk rugs while the guide explained the differences between the cheaper and more expensive products. The difference has to do with the number of knots per square inch (as I recall, around 600 per square inch for the cheaper ones up to 3500 per square inch for the most expensive – but that could be way off). Only one person works on each piece, which can take up to four years to complete. These workers are paid up to 500 yuan a month (about $62), but the only ones who make that much are the most skilled who work on the very high quality silk rugs – and there are not very many of them because by the time they’re skilled enough to do that work, their eyes have given out.
The end of the silk factory tour was a showroom where high-pressure salespeople accosted anyone expressing the remotest interest in a particular piece. The one I wanted, about two feet by four feet, cost $3800. At least that was the “suggested retail price”. I am a terrible bargainer, so I kept my mouth shut. I can do that when the situation warrants.
This place was one of several “Friendship Stores” our tour group visited. My understanding is that these stores were originally set up to help non-Chinese shoppers – the quality was reliable. These days, though, there are many other shopping opportunities in Shanghai. But our tour group was not taken to those places. The Friendship Stores are owned by the Chinese government. Then we learned that our tour guides are employed by the Chinese International Tourist Service (CITS) which is a government agency. At that point I realized that, for sure, the Chinese government had a commercial interest in our trip.
The four of us escaped the sales floor. We were concerned that we would run out of bottled water, as only two complimentary bottles were provided each night by the hotel. The long flight the day before had left us dehydrated and we were nearly out of safe water. So we left the building and snuck down the block until we found a Chinese grocery store. We were proud of ourselves, successfully purchasing four liters of bottled water for less than a dollar each – about a quarter of the price of the bottles in our minibar in the hotel.
As it turned out, we brought some of the water back to Seattle. Everywhere else on our trip provided more bottled water than we needed. But our first foreign purchase was a triumph of shrewd shopping over overpriced hotel amenities.
When the rest of our group emerged from the silk showroom and we were back on bus number two, our guide, David, offered us two more tour options for the the day. We signed up for the evening options – a Chinese banquet and a performance of Chinese acrobats, “twenty-five bucks each,” but decided to pass on the lunch and afternoon excursion to the Shanghai Museum. The bus had narrow aisles and seats, and we were restless after hours of relative inactivity. So we had the afternoon free.
Art and Shari and I went for a brisk 3.4 mile walk on the streets of Shanghai, leaving our hotel and walking for 45 minutes before turning around and heading back. We kept careful track of our turns so we’d be able to find our way. I was wearing black leggings, a T-shirt, white socks and my New Balance walking shoes. No one I met along the way was wearing exercise clothes, and I hoped I wouldn’t get stopped for dressing inappropriately.
Everyone we passed was dressed for work. Both men and women wore suits, and the majority of the clothing was black. Most of the women were attractive - hair cut stylishly, clean and shiny, and with subtle makeup. A number of people were talking on cell phones, though not in the numbers I see at home. I heard that most Chinese people didn’t have telephones before the age of cellular, so the people went from no phones to cell phones. What a market opportunity for the cellular industry – 1.2 billion Chinese!
I saw women walking arm in arm – not just young women with older ones who were likely their mothers, but young women together. And I saw a number of pairs of men walking along, with one man’s hand on the other’s shoulder. It was clear to me that these were not gay couples, but friends. Art said the Chinese must not have the homophobia that Americans do.
I should say here that, on the whole trip, I only saw one Chinese woman who had more than one chin! The people are smaller than we are, and the women are thinner, on average, than American women.
I also observed that the elderly people I saw were short, and the younger adults were much taller. I suspect that the difference is due to improved nutrition. I don’t notice a height difference between the two generations here at home.
I had been told by a friend that Shanghai was a dirty city – and it may have been, several years ago. Even now, there is significant air pollution which has had an impact on the exteriors of buildings. But the streets of Shanghai I walked on were very clean. I saw numerous workers whose job it was to sweep up trash. There were trash bins at frequent locations, and people used them.
I had also been informed, by the same friend, that Chinese men and women spit in public. That was true. When I would hear, behind me, someone clearing their throat loudly, getting ready to spit, I would have a moment of concern that they would spit on me. But though the prelude to the spitting was noisy, the actual event was discreet – not in the middle of the sidewalk, like the teenagers I know at home, but on the edge of the sidewalk, or into a plant bed. I had expected much worse. In some places there were actually metal spittoons on the sidewalk, and where they were available, they were used. (I’ve tried to be delicate about this description, but it was such a noticeable part of our experience in Shanghai that I couldn’t leave it out!)
On foot, the bicycle experience was an active one. We shared the sidewalks with bicycles and motorscooters that were avoiding the heavier traffic on the street. At intersections, all vehicles have the right of way over pedestrians, even though there were lights for both vehicles and pedestrians. And honking is the communication method of choice. So we’d look both ways a couple of times, pick an opportune time to get halfway across the street, wait in the middle, look both ways and scurry across the rest of the street. We had to wait for a break not only in the cars, but in the bicycles, or weave our way between them after carefully gauging their speed and direction.
Most of these bicycles were ancient things. Some had baskets on the front, some on the back. Some had carts on the back, some had little roofs. Some carried only a person going to work, some carried several hundred pounds of sacks. Every bicycle was a one-speed number. There were innumerable bike racks. Each held a hundred or so bicycles, and they were all full. I couldn’t figure out how a person could find his own bicycle – they were all old, all battered, all the same color. Our tour guide David told us that he would have to work for many years to afford a car, so bicycles are a primary means of transportation for the Chinese.
Art and Shari and I were able to keep up a decent walking pace. Where we had to slow down to avoid running into people, we burned the extra calories by our weaving in and out.
The evening’s Chinese banquet turned out to be the first of several we experienced. We sat at a circular table for 12, with a large revolving “lazy susan” in the middle. The server brought out a dish of food which they sometimes identified in broken English. Each person took a small helping (it seemed like about two tablespoons to me) and rotated the lazy susan to the next person. A couple of minutes later, the server brought out another dish. Usually there were 12 to 15 dishes in the meal, ending with soup and rice. So each of us got two tablespoons each of that many different foods. It’s a good way to experiment, but for this Westerner, accustomed to taking hearty servings of three or four items on a plate all at once, the Chinese banquet seemed like slow deprivation. Except that, at the end of every one of those meals, I was full.
I would say that about half the time I had no idea what I was eating. I’d decided I would try everything, and there was only one course that I really didn’t like – very soft tofu floating in a bowl of some kind of broth. (Art told me, as I read this to him, that it was tapioca, improperly prepared. Oh, well). Sampling all that I was served was part of my attitude of willingness to experience whatever the Chinese culture had to offer. In fact, on the first night I sampled something that I actually had seconds of. It was the shape of a canned pineapple slice, but pale gray. Some kind of vegetable, I thought. As it happened, the same food was served the next night. I found out then it was lotus root.
Another decision I made was to use the eating implement that was beside my plate. At the Chinese banquet it was chopsticks. I stuck to it for the whole meal. By the end, I was reasonably proficient, but the muscles in my hand ached from the strain of holding the chopsticks. I had to keep tapping them on my plate to reposition the tips. I tried to be discreet with my clumsiness, and no one pointed and laughed, so I guess I was acceptable.
The complaining Californian from the episode the night before at the front desk of the hotel continued to gripe during this banquet. She criticized each dish as being awful, too bland, too cooked, too chewy, finally proclaiming, “There isn’t anything here that I can eat”. I wondered silently why she had come on this tour when she could have stayed home and eaten all her familiar foods. She then decided she wanted ice in her water. David, the tour guide, heard her loud request of the server. He hurried over and explained to her that the restaurant did not serve ice in November – only in summer. The woman was indignant. We were all treated to her scathing indictment of iceless Chinese restaurants.
That was the last meal I ate with her. I made a point of it.
The acrobatic performance which followed the dinner was entertaining and interesting – about 25 young athletes juggling, balancing, and performing magic tricks. By this time we were pretty tired, so the end of the performance was welcome. We piled into buses and headed back to the hotel for another sound sleep.