Santa in the smog

Santa Claus and my daughter engage in meaningful, substantive talks on a variety of Christmas present-related issues

If you've been following the news, or at the very least have read my recent Facebook posts, then you know the weather here in Shànghăi 上海 has been atrocious. According to the local Shanghai Daily, the city's PM2.5 density peaked at an incredible (and life-shortening) level of 602.5 micrograms per cubic meter at 1 p.m. yesterday. To put the number in perspective, China's official tolerable limit of these nasty little particles is just 75. Do the math, and you can get a sense of how toxic the air was on Friday.

I tried taking some photos around lunchtime yesterday, but my camera isn't good enough to convey just how thick the photochemical soup actually was:

I also tried getting a shot of how things looked in the evening, at around 6 p.m. as I was returning home from work:

For a more professional description of yesterday's smog emergency, a Google search can direct you to several stories, including reports from National Public Radio and the Huffington Post. The choking air has been blamed on a combination of several factors, including atmospheric conditions, polluting factories, the burning of coal for heating in winter and the explosive growth in the number of privately-owned vehicles (as anyone who has been stuck in Shanghai's rush-hour traffic can attest to). It all comes down to the extreme short-sightedness that has been the lynchpin behind China's rapid economic growth, namely the desire to get rich in the quickest yet cheapest ways possible, no matter the environmental, health and social costs that the Chinese are going to be paying in the not-too-distant future when all these choking chickens come home to roost. 

Today was another smoggy affair, but nowhere near the apocalyptic conditions of Friday. Which was fortunate in many ways, one being that we didn't need to wear masks when venturing outside. And venture we did, as this morning was "Breakfast with Santa", held at the main U.S. consulate building located in the French Concession. The consulate property was established in 1921 by Jardine, Matheson and Co., and went through several ownership changes before being acquired by the U.S. government in 1980. The chancery building and consulate grounds are attractive, but the needs of American government functions soon outgrew the spatial limits of the property, which is why the visa section where I currently work is located above a shopping mall a ten-minute cab ride away. 

Amber and Santa reached an agreement on the disposition of gifts, conditioned on a certain young girl's behavior between now and December 25. 

The breakfast was held inside the chancery building. On the wall are photographs of all the U.S. Consul-Generals who have served in Shanghai.

The kids were kept busy with various arts-and-crafts activities

My daughter misuses government property

On the grounds outside

The tasteful period architecture of the Consulate-General is in stark contrast to what can be seen elsewhere in Shanghai (as well as the other prosperous parts of China). A popular buzzword these days is tǔ​háo 土豪, meaning nouveau riche, or to be more specific, how the newly-affluent are going about flaunting their wealth. Tuhao takes the form of bling, expensive cars, sluttish-looking fashion (think leopard-skin prints) and, as in the picture above, tastelessly designed apartment buildings. Nothing screams wealth more than living in a Greco-Roman inspired eyesore. About the only good thing one can say about China's choking smog is that it obscures sights like the one above.

Grateful alive

Our first Thanksgiving in China, and it's been a busy few days. A turkey dinner at home on Thursday with our next-door neighbor who will be leaving Shànghăi 上海 next week, first for Washington, D.C. and then later to his next post in Brasilia. The purchasing on Friday of a tree (artificial, but pre-lit, saving the hassle of having to string lights), signaling the start of the Christmas season (for an officially atheist country with few Christians relative to the size of its admittedly huge population, the local flower market is well-stocked in Xmas paraphernalia, including decorations, trees and wreaths). And with winter almost upon us, a first and last chance to get a glimpse of the kind of autumn scenery we had enjoyed back in Japan and Virginia. Fortunately, we didn't need to go far from Shanghai, as Tiānpíng Mountain 天平山, one of the four best places in China to see red maples (according to Shanghai Daily), is only 90 minutes away by car, just southwest of the popular tourist city, Sūzhōu 苏州. Unfortunately, many other people didn't need to travel far from Shanghai and other nearby localities, either. Such is life in China...

In order to beat the crowds, my wife made the eminently sensible suggestion to spend Saturday night in a hotel close to Tianping Mountain. Her choice was Míngshān Yījiā 名山一家, one of those institutional Chinese hotels that caters to noisy tour groups. The guests were quiet last night; the same couldn't be said of the construction crew, who were hard at work onsite next door at the ungodly hour of six a.m. on a Sunday morning. Such is life in China...

We were given the honor of sleeping in the mahjong room, complete with an automated table and a carpet scarred with cigaret burns. There must've been many sorely disappointed guests at the hotel last night. 

Despite Pamela's best intentions, by the time we arrived at the mountain around nine in the morning, the tourist hordes had descended en masse, and the cacophony would be a constant drone the entire time we were there. Our timing was a little off in other ways, as the reds, golds, oranges and purples had already lost much of their brilliance. Still, it was enough to satisfy my 红叶-obsessed spouse.  

While my wife was looking for leaves in all the right places, I had my sights set on loftier goals. At 201 meters (659 feet), Tianping Mountain isn't very high, but in the vertically-challenged greater Shanghai area, soaring peaks are in extremely short supply. Since arriving in China in early July, the only serious hiking I've done was in mid-September, on Dewa Sanzan 出羽三山, and that was in Japan.

Alas, the crowds did me in. Tianping Mountain may be short, but the stone paths up are steep, not to mention narrow in places. As a result, the trail leading up quickly became congested, leading me to search for an alternative (as in less-crowded) route to the top. Such is life in China...

In the meantime, there were other things to see and do. The girls enjoyed a horseback ride, though I was put off by the cruel way in which one of the handlers cracked a whip to keep the animal from stopping. Such is life in China...

The foot of the mountain was full of pavilions of various kinds to check out

A statue of Bái Jūyì 白居易, a government official and prominent poet who lived during the Táng Dynasty (618-907).

Getting into the spirit of things

Most of the pavilions were connected in some form or another to the descendants of one Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹. The Fans seemed to enjoy welcoming guests into various pavilions, where they would sit in heavy wooden chairs, facing each other, while presumably drinking tea and spouting poetry. As to where they ate, slept and went to the bathroom remained unanswered questions.

No matter where we went, the masses were never far behind

An image evocative of classical China...complete with late-20th century air conditioning

Classical images of Amber and Pamela

On the way up to the top of Taiping Mountain via a side route. The scenery in the immediate area was impressive...

...but the city of Suzhou could barely be made out through the smog, meaning the view from the top wasn't going to be anything remotely close to spectacular. So in deference to my tired spouse (who has never been a fan of the great outdoors), we gradually made our way down the mountain and eventually to our parked car, hoping to get back to Shanghai before the traffic got too heavy.

The smog was pretty bad as we drove through Suzhou, and it only got worse the closer we got to Shanghai. While the expressways were relatively free of traffic leaving Suzhou, once we reached the Shanghai city limits, traffic slowed to the proverbial snail's pace, with drivers constantly cutting in and out of lanes with the barest of distances between themselves and the other cars, while the city could barely be seen through the thick brown soup. As this Thanksgiving holiday weekend nears its end, I'm most grateful for the fact that we made it home unscathed and in one piece. 

Such is life in China...

Movin' on up

You know a city has reached a certain level of prosperity when it can afford to convert a formerly crowded tenement housing area into a chic shopping zone full of the kinds of boutiques, cafes and arts-and-crafts shops that can only thrive when the populace has income to dispose of on such kinds of things. The residents of Shànghăi 上海, in particular, seem to have plenty of cash to throw around these days as there are several such commercialized enclaves within the city limits. On this rainy, chilly Sunday afternoon we visited one of them, an area within the French Concession 上海法租界 known as Tiánzĭfāng 田子坊.

But not before first having a lunch of northwestern Chinese 西北 cuisine at a restaurant located in the underground shopping center around Dăpŭqiáo Metro station 打浦桥站. Though the interior was intended to conjure up Silk Road images of old Xī'ān 西安, the overall effect was more like that of an eatery you would find on the restaurant floor of any large Japanese department store.

In Tianzifang proper, Amber was so fascinated with the candy-making process at a shop called Candy Lab that she was actually willing to part with some of her allowance money and purchased some strawberry-flavored rock candy.

The narrow alleyways of Tianzifang make up an area of traditional Shanghai brick townhouses called shíkùmén 石库门. Instead of being razed in the name of progress, which has been the fate of most of the city's shikumen, the buildings in this district were renovated in the name of tourism. Even on a day when the weather was less-than-cheerful, the alleys were packed with visitors, with a seemingly disproportionately high number of Westerners and Japanese.

Many of the shops sold the kinds of non-essential curios that wouldn't be out of place in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, or any suburban American shopping mall for that matter ("essential oils", anybody?), but a few of the converted old buildings housed galleries dedicated to local craftspeople of note (at least according to the information boards), like the potter's shop pictured above or the gallery displaying the works of an painter who survived the excesses of Maoism by repairing shoes for 17 years before being allowed to paint again. 

I had high hopes for this propaganda poster shop, but the reproductions were cheaply produced and overpriced, and there were too many items of the 很可爱-variety.

The girls, unsurprisingly, found the whole browsing-and-shopping experience to be very gratifying.

I was surprised at the number of non-Chinese dining establishments in Tianzifang. Among the various restaurants offering Indian and Thai cuisine, as well as Western-style brunches, was this branch of Taiwan's infamous Modern Toilet chain. Any more contributions such as this to world cuisine, and the renegade province deserves to be "reunited with the mainland" by force.

One satisfied little girl after polishing off her first egg tart. Dad still prefers the jam-filled variety from the isles of Albion, something he hasn't had in quite some time. 

Back in our neighborhood, and a more palatable Taiwanese dish for dinner, the humble but satisfying jīròufàn 鸡肉饭.

Family Bunding

Winter is here, and along with the plunging temperatures, this means the air quality is worsening. Shànghăi 上海 has suffered from high pollution levels this past week, but fortunately this weekend the skies cleared up somewhat. 

Saturday was a pleasant day, not only for the weather, but because we had an opportunity to see Bruce, a colleague of mine from A100 class, who took advantage of a business trip to Shanghai from his post in Chéngdù 成都 to bring his wife Kerryn and daughter Erin (a playmate of my daughter from our time in Falls Church) along. We were thus able to invite them over to our neighborhood and to catch up on things over lunch at a nearby branch of Shanghai Brewery. We're looking forward to visiting Chengdu before Bruce and his family move on to their next post in Frankfurt.

Today (Sunday), the skies were even clearer, though the temperatures were noticeably colder. The three of us in the Kaminoge family took advantage of the atmospheric conditions to continue our exploration of Shanghai's most famous sightseeing spot, the site of the former International Settlement known as the Bund 外滩. Some of you may remember that the Bund was the first place we visited after arriving in this city in early July. At that time we checked out the northern part of the row of European-style buildings; today it was time to see what there was along the southern half of 中山东一路.

And what better place to start an exploration of the Bund than the Fairmont Peace Hotel 和平饭店, located at No. 20. Built between 1926 and 1929 by Victor Sassoon as the Cathay Hotel, it was considered the most prestigious hotel in Shanghai prior to the Communist takeover in 1949. Today, it's worth the time to pop in and have a look at the Art Deco lobby.

The hotel was noted for its jazz combo, which entertained patrons in the first-floor bar until the dour Communists put a stop to the Western decadence in the name of "socialist morality". Jazz has since resumed with some of the original hep cats still jamming along to "sultry female vocalist(s)".

The Peace Hotel has its own small museum called the Peace Gallery, containing memorabilia from the glory days and photos of prominent guests such as Charlie Chaplin and General George Marshall. Noel Coward wrote his play Private Lives while holed up at the then-Cathay with a serious case of the flu.

The view from a second-floor window of the Peace Hotel. It's no doubt even more spectacular from the bar on the ninth floor.

The South Building sits on the other side of Nánjīng East Road 南京东路 and is now called the Swatch Art Peace Hotel. It was completed in 1906.

The two wings of the Peace Hotel

No. 18 The Bund 外滩18号 is the former Chartered Bank of India and Australia. It now houses several high-end retailers such as Cartier, with my favorite was the shop selling Noritake ノリタケ porcelain.

Next door at No. 17, American International Assurance has returned to the property it was evicted from in 1949. In those pre-Communist days, AIA shared the building with the English-language North China Daily News. The newspaper's motto - "Journalism, Art, Science, Literature, Commerce, Truth, Printing" - is still engraved above the first-floor windows. 

Next up, at No. 13, was one of the Bund's more iconic buildings, the Customs House 上海海关, completed in 1927. The clock tower was modeled after Big Ben, and like its London inspiration, it chimes every fifteen minutes (during the Cultural Revolution 文化大革命, it played The East is Red twice a day).

No. 12 was built in 1921 as the headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and has the largest facade of all the buildings along the Bund. It's now owned by the Pŭdōng Development Bank.

My daughter with the two bronze lions that stand guard outside. Rubbing their noses supposedly brings good luck. These are modern-day replacements; the originals were taken away during the war by the Japanese, though one can now be seen in the local history museum.

The HSBC Building and the Customs House, side-by-side on the Bund

On the right is Five on the Bund 外滩5号 at No. 5 is the headquarters of a Chinese bank, but is more famous for its upscale restaurant M on the Bund. It's neighbor, Three on the Bund 外滩3号, houses some ritzy shops and swanky restaurants.

The last building of note that we checked out this afternoon was Number 2, which is now the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai, but was once home to the very exclusive Shanghai Club and its 108-foot-long mahogany Long Bar.

Across the road from the McBain Building, the last building on the Bund (or the first, judging by the address), is the 1907 former Meteorological Signal Tower 外滩信号台, built by the Jesuits as a meteorological relay station.

We considered the possibility of taking a cruise along the Huángpŭ River 黄浦江 as the docks for such trips were only a short walk from the signal tower, but it was getting late in the afternoon and the temperature was noticeably chillier by this point. The Bund isn't going anywhere and neither are we, however (for the next couple of years, anyway), so we have time to come back again...and again...and again...and....