State of the Post

We missed our turnoff this afternoon and ended up on the wrong side of the Huàngpŭ River 黄浦江. From left to right, the Shanghai World Financial Center 上海环球金融中心, Shanghai Tower 上海中心大厦 and Jīn Mào Tower 金茂大厦. 

The view from my wife's hotel room. Take away the apartment blocks and the Pŭdōng 浦东 skyline, and Shànghăi 上海 is actually an extremely flat city. Pamela has been suffering from a bad cold and graciously offered to sleep by herself so as not to pass anything on to either me or our daughter. I appreciate the sacrifice she made with having to sleep in that comfortable double bed all by herself.

We were kicked out of our housing compound this weekend. Actually, no one forced us to go, but a thorough repaving of the complex’s driveways was scheduled for yesterday and today, and the management offered to put the residents up at a hotel for Friday and Saturday nights until the work was done. Faced with a choice of staying indoors all weekend while the area outside our front door was transformed into the La Brea Tar Pits, or enjoying the comforts of a five-star hotel on someone else’s tab, we agonized over what to do for about a millisecond before opting for the latter choice. 

A multistory fabric market specializing in tailor-made clothing. Some real bargains on made-to-fit suits and dresses can be had here, but all that fabric confined in such a tight-fitting space seems like a fire disaster waiting to happen. However, nothing like that could ever happen in a country governed by laws, such as China.

My daughter suggested to her mother that she might like to buy this qípáo 旗袍. Pamela respectfully declined the suggestion.

This wasn’t the first time we’ve been treated to a hotel stay while work was being done in our compound. In fact, like the Winchester Mystery House when it was under construction, workmen have been going at it non-stop during daylight hours every day for the past eight months, with the exception of a break during the Lunar New Year. What began as a short-term project to replace sewer pipes turned into a textbook case of mission creep, as the compound’s owner decided to make additional “improvements” while he had all that cheap migrant labor on hand. The lawns have been torn up and re-sodded, doorways and curbs have been completely redone and now the driveways have a new coating of tar. At one point, the area around our home looked like a World War One battlefield, what with trenches and craters pockmarking the landscape. Strange men are often seen passing through our backyard, and cigarette butts litter the ground all around our house. While I’m sure the end result will be a much more attractive complex, we were initially promised that everything was to have been finished by the start of this year (as in "January"). Now we are almost halfway through 2015, and the end is still nowhere in sight. Granted, seeing as all we pay for is the Internet and landline telephone bills, we can’t really complain (and, hey, the complimentary breakfast at the hotel this weekend wasn’t bad), but if we were one of those other families paying the rent each month to live here, I think we would have a right to be pretty furious.

The not-quite-as-impressive view from the room Amber and I shared this weekend. We could see the swimming pool, which we used a couple of times. 

My daughter on the mean streets of Hóngqiáo 虹桥

Meanwhile, the pace has picked up at work. Since the federal government decided that busloads of Chinese tourists shopping at suburban factory outlet malls is the solution for curing whatever it is that ails the U.S. economy, demand for visas has continued to grow. But that isn’t the main reason I’ve been putting in サラリーマン-like hours at the office in recent weeks. There are several projects for which I've offered my services, including one that relates to a certain national holiday coming soon, and which is testing my extremely limited graphic design and computational skills. Had it been up to me, this particular occasion would’ve been a low-key affair, a modest celebration of how far we have come as a nation balanced with an honest appraisal of the challenges still facing us, to be shared with guests from our host country and others in the diplomatic community. But just as our foreign policy has been recalibrated over the past couple of decades to include free trade as a measurement of democratic progress, or, better yet, how two certain year-end festive occasions are now sinking in the morass of over-commercialization, this upcoming celebration must have a theme. And that theme must benefit a designated industry grouping. No wonder I'm feeling kind of hollow now when I listen to those old Black Flag favorites.

"You need suit? How about pants? You look!"

Don't be so shellfish

At least all of these efforts should reflect well on my annual performance review, due before we leave Shanghai at the end of next month. Of course, what started out as a well-meaning effort to provide impartial evaluations of the workforce has been altered over the years as it passed through the bowels of the federal bureaucracy to become a document filled with bragging boasting astounding accomplishments, which few will take at face value but which will be used as the basis when the time comes for considering tenure and promotions. In the end, the number of hours of unpaid overtime I've put in at the office getting things done won’t be taken into account. Instead, my career trajectory will be determined in large part by whether or not I used proper grammar and punctuation when writing my own performance assessments. And in an organization in which everyone is expected to demonstrate "leadership", what will become of the followers who will actually get the work done? 

Tasteful decorations in the hotel hallways

No one will ever accuse Amber of not being a team player, as she showed during a get-together yesterday at the consulate. Her father, on the other hand...

Still, it’s been an interesting couple of years here in China, and I’ve enjoyed the work for the most part. The next few weeks are going to be busy ones as I wrap up my roles in the aforementioned work projects while simultaneously preparing for the move out of Shanghai. I’m looking forward to relaxing in the U.S. for a few weeks this summer before undertaking the next challenge of learning just enough Russian to be able to do my job well enough at my next post in Vilnius. 

This painting adorns the wall outside a Chinese restaurant that Pamela inexplicably always insists on taking visitors to when going out to eat.

Hiding in the bushes on the consulate grounds is this stone lantern, the likes of which are common sights at Shintō shrines 神社 in Japan (as well as in various locations in the former Japanese colony of Taiwan), but here in China...

And, with any luck, by the time we arrive in Lithuania next May, all this work at our housing compound in Shanghai may just be getting finished.

Je concède rien

Today is Memorial Day, and for us it's the second-to-last three-day American holiday weekend before we depart Shànghăi 上海 in late July. I had hoped we could've taken advantage of this time to do some final traveling in China, but with my brother-in-law, one of my sisters-in-law and a friend of my wife's visiting from Taiwan, our options were limited. Still, we had plans for everyone to spend Sunday night in Tónglĭ 同里, one of the many "canal towns" located close to Shanghai. Pamela found that renting a car to accommodate everyone would've been too expensive, however. The other option would've been to have ridden the train to Sūzhōu 苏州, then taken a couple of taxis to Tongli, but for some reason my wife wasn't very keen on that idea (probably because it was mine). We could've gone in our car, but six people would've been a very tight fit, and as Pamela was involved in a minor fender bender on Saturday afternoon (not her fault as she was hit from behind by a taxi; the damage was minor and no one was hurt, fortunately), it just seemed too risky, even for the relatively short drive to Tongli. So, in the end, my wife and her visitors went to Tongli while my daughter and I stayed behind. Yesterday, other than going to a Chinese restaurant for lunch, the two of us stayed close to home (Amber played outside with friends, while I went for a bike ride). Today, my daughter went to school; I took advantage of the time to myself by exploring part of one of my favorite areas in Shanghai, the French Concession 法租界.

My explorations began by walking from the South Shaanxi Road metro station 陕西南路站, via Xiāngyáng South 襄阳南路, Fùxĭng Middle 复兴中路 and Fényáng Roads 汾阳路, to the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum 上海工艺美术博物馆. The collection is housed in a building dating back to 1905: it was originally the residence of the director of the chamber of industry in the French Concession, before being the Shanghai office of, first, the World Health Organization and, then, the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association. Since 1960, it's been the home of the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Research Institute:

Inside are examples of  traditional crafts such as embroidery, jade cutting, lacquer work and paper cutting. Highlights today included this woodcarving entitled Storm on May 30...:

...Sistine Madonna, a fine example of woolen embroidering that was inexplicably shunted off into a corner...:

...and this crown made of gold leaf, used in Chinese opera performances:

There were a number of artists in residence when I visited, such as these two women working on embroidery pieces:

Despite being presented as a museum, however, I couldn't help but feeling that I was in an ornate gift shop. Many of the exhibits had price tags on them, and an authorized foreign exchange counter was located on the first floor. All major credit cards were accepted, of course. As much as I would've liked to have made a purchase or two, most items were out of my budget. This piece below, for example, was priced at 18,000 RMB (about $2900):

Admission is only 8 RMB ($1.30), however, which is a bargain as it allows you to step inside and admire one of Shanghai's many beautiful early 20th-century homes:

The goals for the Chinese Dream 中国梦 are apparently surprisingly modest, judging by this banner. Still, China's dreamers have their work cut out for them:

The weather today was close to perfect:

From the Shanghai Museum of Arts and Crafts, it was a short walk down Tàiyuán Road 太原路 to the Taiyuan Villa 太原别墅. General George Marshall stayed there from 1946 to 1949 while he tried to broker an agreement between the Kuomintang 國民黨 and the Chinese Communist Party 中国共产党 . Máo Zédōng's 毛泽东 wife, Jiāng Qīng 江青, also lived here for a while, proving George Orwell's observation that in a supposedly classless society, some people are more equal than others. The complex now houses an exclusive hotel, but visitors are free to wander the grounds:

Next, I backtracked to Fenyang Road, which soon turned into Táojiāng Road 桃江路 , which in turn ends at the American consulate. I made a short detour to an Indian restaurant called Saffron, and treated myself to one of their lunch specials:

Suitably fortified, I ambled down Urumqi Road 乌鲁木齐路, in the process passing by the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is just down the street from the U.S. legation. As the U.S. is at last moving to normalize relations with Cuba (long overdue), I hope someday we'll do the same with Iran and North Korea (it's a dream of mine to one day work at the U.S. embassy in Pyongyang, should that day come before I retire) - recognition does not imply agreeing with a country's political system (did somebody say China?), but it's better to have channels of communication open rather than always resorting to military action. On this Memorial Day, I remember those who died in the uniform of their country by hoping others don't have to make the ultimate sacrifice in pointless actions overseas. By the way, this is not a photo of the Iranian consulate:

Fuxing West Road 复兴西路 is a pleasant tree-lined stretch of road, providing much-needed shade on those hot and humid Shanghai summer days. On the other hand, it must feel pretty gloomy when the sky is overcast or it's raining:

The Propaganda Poster Art Center 上海宣传画中心, at 868 Huàshān Road 华山路, is a place that I've wanted to visit ever since coming to Shanghai, and after almost two years here, I finally got around to seeing it this afternoon. It isn't the easiest of places to find, being located in the basement of an ordinary apartment building, but the collection of Maoist posters from the 1950's, '60's and '70's (only a handful of which are on display at any one time) is worth the effort to track down. Photography isn't allowed, but as Lenin once observed (and I'm paraphrasing here), you can't be a true revolutionary if you obey the signs to keep off the grass. This poster shows children playing with a U.S. imperialist paper tiger...literally:

Hailing the over-fulfillment of steel production by ten million tons. Way to go, Chicoms!:

The largest poster in the photo below celebrates the Great Leap Forward 大跃进,  an example of Maoist lunacy that resulted in the deaths by starvation of between 18 and 45 million people:

And, of course, there were posters related to the Cultural Revolution 文化大革命, when Mao's cult of personality reached its orgasmic zenith:

The center also has some examples of "four character" posters", which were once ubiquitous throughout China, but are now rare. In the poster below, the person with their name crossed out in red X's is the subject of what must've been a thoroughly unpleasant denunciation:

And because one can only take so much of lantern-jawed, muscular members of the proletariat demonstrating their undying devotion to Mao Zedong Thought 毛泽东思想, there are also examples of the commercial posters Shanghai was noted for in the days of the International Settlement:

Emerging back into the 21st century, I retreated to a cafe on Xīngguó Road 兴国路 to take a break and admire some of the postcards I'd purchased in the Propaganda Poster Art Center's gift shop. I'd hoped to buy a reproduction of a poster calling for the liberation of Taiwan (which I once saw for sale in an antique shop on the Duōlún Culture Street 多论文化名人街), but you can't always get what you want, as a noted street fighting man once pointed out:

The last leg of my journey today took me to Huáihăi Middle Road 淮海中路, where I walked by this residential complex dating from the 1920's, evoking images of New York's Flatiron Building:

My final destination was the former home of Sōng Qìnglíng 宋庆龄, whose mausoleum I'd checked out a few weeks previously. The wife of Sun Yat-sen 孙中山 lived here from 1948 to 1963 in a house built in the 1920's by a Greek shipping magnate. There is a small museum devoted to Madame Sun, featuring photos of her with various world leaders:

I was most fascinated by this copy of Red Star Over China, inscribed by Edgar Snow himself:

This snippet from a family photo album illustrates the remarkable story of the Soong sisters 宋氏三姐妹. Still, other than sleeping with a man revered for being the father of modern China, as well as for astutely siding with the winning side at the end of the Chinese civil war, it's hard to see just what Song Qingling did that made her "one of greatest women of the 20th century", according to the hagiography:

The adjoining residence, though, is impressive, starting with the two limos (the one on the left a gift from Stalin) in the garage:

The house is treated like a shrine, with visitors required to put plastic covers over their shoes. I was put into a tour group upon entering, but as the explanations quickly degenerated into pointless minutiae, I ended up wandering through the residence on my own:

No explanation was given as to why this typewriter was placed in the bathroom (I took this photo while standing in front of the toilet). Did Song Qingling type her correspondence to various world figures while answering the call of nature?:

While taking a photo of a gift from the Great Leader himself, Kim Il-Sung, I was gently admonished by a security guard that photography wasn't allowed. Which is all well and good, except that the same guard said nothing earlier to any of the Chinese visitors using their camera phones to snap pics of the sitting room and dining room. Are only foreigners prohibited from taking pictures? If so, shouldn't there have been signage to that effect in English? It's too bad Pamela wasn't with me - I really wanted to ask the guard if it was permitted for "Taiwan compatriots" 台胞 to record images:

The garden was somewhat of a disappointment, as it mostly consisted of lawn space and little else:

I often wonder what Chinese visitors to Shanghai make of the fact that the most interesting sights in the city are almost all related to the so-called period of "national humiliation" of the International Settlement, the French Concession and extraterritoriality. For all the justified grievances and perceived slights, the Western residents of that bygone age certainly left behind an impressive architectural legacy. I'd imagine that only a diehard patriot would deny that the French Concession, with its leafy streets and pleasant cafes and restaurants, is a much nicer place to live in than most modern-day Chinese urban centers. Kudos to Shanghai for preserving so much of its not-always-glorious heyday:

Guess they miscalculated how much footwear they would actually sell?: