Labor Day

It's Labor Day today, a Federal holiday back in the States and a day off as well for those us working at the U.S. Consulate in Shàng​hǎi 上海 (one of the perks in this line of work is the observance of both American and local public holidays). Unfortunately, my daughter still had to attend school and my wife wasn't feeling very well, so I had the morning and afternoon all to myself. So I began this day of rest by taking the Metro to Nán​jīng East Road station 南京东路站, and from there walking over to the city's most well-known area, the Bund 外滩. The warm weather and clear skies made for some nice views looking across the Huáng​pǔ River 黄浦江 toward the Pǔ​dōng 浦东 district:

Pudong was where I was headed today. There are several ways to get there, such as by ferry or subway, but I chose the strangest route: the Bund Tourist Tunnel 外滩观光隧道. For the rather steep one-way fare of 50 RMB ($8.20), you step into what can only be described as a capsule that whisks you under the river to the Pudong side. But there's more to it than just that. You are taken through a psychedelic light show that can probably only be truly appreciated with the help of LSD, while announcements in Chinese and English intone such mind-blowing concepts as "Heaven and Punishment" and "Magma". During the two minutes or so I was in the tunnel, I was reminded of the trip Dr. David Bowman took at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The video and pictures posted below can't begin to convey the utter bizarreness of it all:

It was with some relief that I exited the Bund Tourist Tunnel. The whole experience is such an exercise in kitsch (there's even a Believe It Or Not museum on the Pudong side) that I was glad to get back to reality. Reality in Pudong means the Oriental Pearl Tower 东方明珠广播电视塔, which dominates the skyline: 

It's an eyesore, but an impressive one at 1499 feet (457 meters), and it isn't even the tallest building in Pudong. That honor belongs to still-unfinished Shanghai Tower, which will stand 2073 feet (632 meters) high when finished next year and is already the world's second-tallest:

My purpose for coming to Pudong was not to go to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower, but to visit a museum that would not be suitable for those under the age of 18. In other words, I wanted to take advantage of having a day off while my daughter was at school to check out the China Sex Culture Exhibition. However, I was to be denied the opportunity to see such items as the "saddle with a wooden stump for punishing adulterous women", according to my copy of The Rough Guide to Shanghai. The museum was not where my guidebook said it would be, i.e. close to the exit from the tourist tunnel. I searched in vain, but couldn't find it anywhere, and it wasn't listed on any of the area maps. Actually, I wasn't surprised, as the fact the museum wasn't mentioned in Lonely Planet's Shanghai guide (a more recent edition than the Rough Guide book) led me to suspect that it had either closed up shop or moved to a more discreet location. In any event, I was too shy to ask anybody for directions. 

Fortunately, though, one museum was where the guidebooks said it would be, at the base of the Oriental Pearl Tower. The Shanghai History Museum 上海城市历史发展馆 turned out to be very interesting, and worth the 35 RMB ($5.70) admission fee. There were displays on transportation, such as this model of a public bus from the 1930's...:

...as well as more traditional modes of getting around, such as sedan chairs and wheelbarrows:

Dioramas abounded,  such as this one of a pharmacy...:

...and this one of a teahouse, which didn't have very many customers...:

... probably because most of the townsfolk were at another teahouse, watching a performance of Chinese opera:

There were also depictions of typical street scenes...:

...and a few mementos from the days of the International Settlement, like these boundary markers:

...and this bronze lion, which once stood guard in front of the old HSBC building on the Bund:

All told, the history museum was very informative, well-captioned in English and would be an entertaining place to bring the kids to see.

Leaving the Shanghai of the 1930's, it was time to re-emerge into the 21st century:

I spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling along the riverside promenade Bīn​jiāng Dà​dào  滨江大道. The buildings of the Bund were visible this time on the other side of Huangpu, including (going from left to right in the photo below) the Fairmont Peace Hotel 和平饭店, the Bank of China and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China:

At one point, the promenade provided an unexpected sight in the form of a small marsh with wading birds looking for food in the none-too-clean river water:

I continued along Binjiang Dadao, stopping for a raspberry tea break at Starbucks and looking at more of the buildings along the Bund. In the photo below, the building on the right is the old Customs House 上海海关, completed in 1927 and which has a chiming bell tower. Next door on the left is the original Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters, in front of which stood the bronze lion seen earlier in the history museum:

Time for a self-portrait:

Eventually I arrived at the ferry dock, where for a mere 2 RMB (30¢), I bought a ticket and boarded a ferry for the short trip across the river back to the Pǔ​xī 浦西 side. Pulling out into the Huangpu, we had a clear view of the Shanghai Tower:

The view from the stern:

Looking back at the Pudong side as we got closer to Puxi:

The view from the bow:

The Bund welcomed us as the ferry pulled up to the dock:

Looking back at the ferry after getting off at Puxi:

While it would've been nice to have had the family along today, at least I didn't have to listen to anyone complaining about having to actually use their legs for the purpose of locomotion. It's been a relaxing three-day weekend, but work beckons tomorrow. From Wednesday of next week, however, I'll be on holiday for two weeks in Japan and Taiwan. In the meantime, there are a few more attractions in Pudong that might be worth further exploration...

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics on parade

Just another building along Nanjing West Road 

I dragged my eager daughter and less-than-impressed wife today on a walk along Shàng​hǎi's 上海 Nán​jīng West Road 南京西路, the area where my workplace is located, and where the city's nouveau riche (which basically means almost everybody who has been doing business here since 1990) go to see and be seen. We started out around noon on the coolest day by far since we've been in Shanghai by exiting the People's Square Metro station 人民广场站 and looking for somewhere to have lunch. I'd hoped to introduce Pamela to a restaurant called Yīchá Yīzuò 一茶一坐 that served Taiwanese-style dishes, but as soon as she discovered there was a branch of the Taiwanese steak chain Tasty two floors higher, I knew I had lost the lunch battle (so much for saving money).

Several hundred kuài 块 lighter and several pounds heavier, we began our walk along Nanjing West Road. Between People's Square and Jìng'ān Temple Metro stations 静安寺站 there is little of interest for the sightseer, but plenty to get the shopper salivating. And what better place to engage in some Chinese-style  retail therapy than by visiting this place:

Han City Fashion & Accessories Plaza is four floors of violations of intellectual property rights. Bags, clothes, electronics, shoes and watches can all be had there, and not a single item is the real thing. Walking through the narrow corridors on each floor meant running a gauntlet of fake goods hawkers tossing out the only English words they knew - "Armani", "watches", "Lacoste", "luggage", "Ralph Lauren", "souvenirs", "Hello Kitty", "jerseys" and so on. 

I wanted to document the whole experience on film and in pictures, but I got the feeling the vendors would not have appreciated my need to record all of this. The best I could do was this pic of Amber standing next to some colorful lights moving around on the wall, and in the background you can see the shop workers eying us warily. It was time to move on, especially as my wife didn't particularly like seeing this side of China's economy (she couldn't understand, either, why there were so many foreign shoppers there).

As we continued westward along Nanjing Road, things became progressively more upscale, and we soon encountered a series of shopping malls. First up was the Westgate Mall 梅龙镇广场:

Like all the shopping centers along Nanjing West Road, the Westgate isn't exactly a "mall" in the American sense of the term - Chinese malls in this part of town are dominated by luxury brand names such as Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. And while the adjoining Isetan Department Store 伊勢丹 was filled with Saturday afternoon shoppers, the stores in the mall itself were largely devoid of customers. This is a scene replicated in virtually all of China's high-end shopping plazas - outlets for name-brand goods where the staff outnumber the shoppers. It seems the more well-off among the population save their rénmínbì 人民币 for shopping vacations overseas (welcome to America!), while the less well-heeled bargain hard for the fakes at places like the above-mentioned Han City.

The benefit of there being an Isetan at Westgate meant there was a decent food court in the basement, ideal for sitting down for a spell while enjoying that special sugar rush that only be brought on by a custard-filled taiyaki 鯛焼き.

The next mall along Nanjing Road was CITIC Square 中信泰富广场, smaller than Westgate but filled with the same sort of retail outlets...and the same lack of consumers.

Actually, that last statement should be qualified: there were plenty of people inside, but not many of them spent much time inside the stores, buying the merchandise. There were, however, plenty of security guards to keep the proletariat out (Nanjing Road has a surprising number of beggars and trinket sellers). China, in fact, has a disturbingly high number of private uniformed goons to keep an eye on things, which is why I ended up taking this picture of the inside of CITIC Square as surreptitiously as possible.

Amber poses in front of the next mall, Plaza 66 恒隆广场. More of the same...

Last up in the tetralogy of high-end commerce was Shanghai Centre 上海商城 and arguably the most interesting of the four. Inside there are cafes, restaurants, a five-star hotel, luxury apartments for expatriates, an imported foods supermarket and the Shanghai Centre Theatre, home to nightly acrobatics shows that sound like something worth seeing sometime in the near future. 

I can't speak for the rest of China's booming coastal cities, but in Shanghai, at least, there is no better place to witness China's abandonment of the Communist Party's core principles...er, I mean "socialism with Chinese characteristics" than the section of Nanjing West Road that the three of us walked along today. And yet just across the street from Shanghai Centre is a relic of that recent Marxist past holding its ground against the high-rises springing up all around it: the Shanghai Friendship Exhibition Hall 展览馆. It was built by the Russians in 1954 in glorious Stalinist architecture, and was originally called the Palace of Sino-Soviet Friendship. The building has managed to survive the Sino-Soviet split, the border conflict of 1969, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Dèng​ Xiǎo​píng's 邓小平 determination that getting rich was somehow the "glorious" way to bring about a worker's paradise, and is now used as a venue for trade shows, including a recently-held book fair.

It's hideous, monstrous and oppressive. And I wish Shanghai had more examples of structures like this one.

This heroic constructor of socialism looks out across a largely empty square to an elevated road clogged with BMW's and Mercedes', and high-rise apartment buildings and bank towers. What would Chairman Mao make of it all?

Red stars like the one in the picture above are in short supply in Shanghai. The East is red, but only because that's the color of the 100 RMB banknote.

The dusty and moldy rooms of the Friendship Exhibition Hall were largely empty today, much like the ideology underpinning the Chinese Communist Party's political legitimacy. 

Sunset over Shanghai, from the platform of the Zhōng​shān​ Park Metro station 中山公园站

Terminally hip stone gates

As hú​tòngs 胡同 are to Běi​jīng 北京, so shí​kù​mén 石库门 are to Shàng​hǎi 上海. Or perhaps I should say "were", for when it comes to Shanghai's traditional architectural style, genuine examples are apparently getting harder and harder to find in China's ongoing rush to knock old things down and put up new stuff in their place. The future of old buildings in Shanghai (if not for all of China) may depend on the success of developments such as the place we visited today, Xīn​tiān​dì 新天地. In Xintiandi, shikumen have been renovated, rebuilt and redeveloped into a pedestrian-only shopping zone full of expensive restaurants and designer boutiques. This particular development appears to be a smashing success, but it's still too early to tell what effect Chinese-style gentrification will have on the country's urban landscape. For a family such as ours, Xintiandi makes for an enjoyable, if somewhat pricey, weekend excursion.

Our Sunday outing began in Xintiandi's less impressive South Block, which is dominated by a modern shopping mall. Inside, we had an early lunch at a Chinese/Western fusion restaurant called Michael. As in the given name only, and without a possessive.

We didn't spend much time in this part of Xintiandi other than to eat. Here, Amber poses at the end of the South Block, before we walked under the arch and across a small street into the more atmospheric North Block.

But not before stopping in at the local post office, where my daughter had a postcard made with her photo resembling a postage stamp. It was immediately mailed to a certain grandparent back in the U.S.

Though primarily aimed at shoppers, Xintiandi does boast a couple of sightseeing attractions. One is the Site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party 中国一大会址纪念馆. It was in the building above that the first meeting of the CCP took place on July 23, 1921. Inside are photographic exhibitions on the history of the party and a few relics from Shanghai's days as an International Settlement, while upstairs there's a diorama consisting of wax figures of the delegates at their historic get-together, all tied together with the kind of Communist propaganda (numerous references to the proletariat and bourgeoisie) that you seldom see or hear these days in the era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It's too bad photography wasn't permitted.

Shanghai played an important role in the early history of the Chinese Communist Party. The communists were very active in the city throughout the 1920's, until Chiang Kai-shek  将介石 and the ruling Kuomintang 国民党 one day in 1927 decided to arm the city's gangsters with guns and KMT uniforms. The resulting massacre drove the party underground, while the decapitation of the party's leadership helped Máo​ Zé​dōng 毛泽东 in his quest to take over the CCP. Mao, in turn, would eventually abandon the party's urban campaigns and instead focus his attention on building a base of support among the oppressed peasantry, which in turn would eventually lead to the Communists' victory in the Chinese Civil War 国共内战. All this has little to do with the souvenir I bought today at the Maoist shrine, and which I probably won't be wearing to work anytime soon.

Xintiandi's other attraction is the Shikumen Open House Museum 石库门民居陈列馆. It was really a pity that photography wasn't allowed here, either, as the museum makes for a worthwhile visit. This reconstruction of an upper-class family shikumen is filled with the kind of everyday objects such a family would have used in the early 20th-century. As a result, the displays are brought to life in a way that more drier (and emptier) museums could never hope to achieve.

You can't prohibit picture-taking on the balcony, even if we are living in an authoritarian state

The North Block does a much better job of incorporating the shikumen architecture. The Häagen-Dazs in the background came in handy as an expensive coffee break when a thunderstorm suddenly rolled through the area.

The side alleys are known in Chinese as lòng​táng 弄堂. They're ideal for standing around in, trying to look cool.

This impressive structure isn't a shikumen. It's the private club of the Hong Kong developers who created Xintiandi. No doubt they stand out on the balcony at times and watch the money come rolling in.

This cafe was located across the street from the entrance to Xintiandi's North Block. The reason I've posted this picture is because of the name. Not "Kafe Laku" - 猫屎咖啡, or māo​shǐ kā​fēi, literally translates as "Cat shit coffee". Fancy a cup of their joe?

The last thing we did this afternoon before heading home was to take a stroll along a street filled with shops selling qí​páo 旗袍. My wife is in the market for one of these traditional Chinese dresses, and hopefully picked up some ideas while we were.