1641 These are half of the large white statues outside the Shanghai Museum.
1659 This is the fairly plain but highly adorned dress of the Lhoba People.
1676 By way of contrast, this is the unadorned but colorful fabric Niao ceremonial dress.
1704 This is the white jade bladed Ge with the turquoise inlaid haft and green jade scabbard from 1200BC.
1732 This is the deeply carved green jade brush holder from the Qing Dynasty, 1644AD
Oct 18 – At Sea. Today we had a nice smooth day at sea heading across the Sea of Japan to the South China Sea and Shanghai.
Our entertainment for the evening was the Amsterdam Cast in a show they call Take a Bow. It was mainly singing with just one dance number by two of the dancers. It was a ballet set without going to point, very elegant and smooth. A very nice show.
Oct 19 – Shanghai, China. We’ve been here twice before including last year but like Nagasaki we have always gone out to town on trips. Like Nagasaki, this time we decided to stay in town and see Shanghai. Sometimes called the Paris of the East and the Queen of the Orient, Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of 13 million.
There are still lots of bikes, motorbikes and cycles on the streets here but less than in 2002 on our first visit. I’m constantly amazed at how much cargo can be loaded on a bicycle here. Today I didn’t see any really outrageous loads but several impressive ones went by the bus.
Our first stop was at the Shanghai Museum home to over 100,000 artifacts and almost half a million reference pieces used by researchers. It’s in a very new building with unusual architecture. It’s basically a rectangular building with a circular top that looks like someone laid a large roll of movie film on top of a shipping trunk. The diameter of the round structure is bigger than the width of the building so it hangs over the front entrance. Inside the round structure is the 4th floor of the museum. The trunk has the first 3. There’s a row of white statues along the front of the building that appear to represent animals from Chinese mythology.
After entering the building you come to a large central atrium that extends upward through all four floors of the structure. On one side there’s a stairway and on the other side escalators to reach the various floors. Our time was limited and there were some exhibits we had to see and they were both on the 4th floor, and the Ancient Chinese Jade Gallery.
The Chinese Minority Nationalities Art Gallery has a great collection of artifacts but the best part is the mannequins they have dressed in the traditional garb of the various minorities living in China. This area is not necessarily historical. Many if not most of the clothing is from the mid-20th century. They dress like this today. The Orogan, Hezhen, Uygur, Miao, Dong, Bouyei, Lhoba, Gaashan, Li, Bai, Zhuang, Tujia, Kirgiz, Hui, Tibetan, Yi, Yao, Shui, Niao, Mongolian, Lahu, Tajik, Taiwan, Jino, Derung and She people are represented. Except for the Dong, Li, Bai, Tibetan, Mongolian, Taiwan, and Cham I don’t recall ever hearing of any of these groups before and I was just introduced to the Cham last year. Two costumes struck me the most, A Nao ceremonial dress and a woman’s wool felt outfit from the Lhoba. The Nao dress is very colorful fabrics but no adornment of any kind. There were no visible clips, pins or metal buckles, nada.
The Lhoba outfit was of a contrasting style. The fabrics were very plain with only minor designs and mostly one color. She’s wearing multiple necklaces made of blue stones, round with flat sides like a puka shell necklace. One of these necklaces has white stones. She has an earring in her right ear that has to be quite heavy. It has two strings of rounded blue stone beads that are carved in the shape of a pumpkin. The valleys between the segments of the pumpkin are painted or dyed black. One string appears to be a loop about 8 inches long the other is about 5. Ouch! She’s wearing a belt of various size copper or brass disks in two rows. Suspended from this belt by braided leather thongs there’s a row of cowry shell balls connected to the leather by square bone eyelets. Below that, apparently suspended from the belt like a watch chain, is a metal chain that goes completely across her abdomen. The part of her trousers that extends past the long red skirt she’s wearing is the most colorful thing on her. The largest artifacts in the gallery were the two brightly painted wooden Gooshan fishing boats.
The Ancient Chinese Jade Gallery was very dimly lit and hard to photograph. Most of the artifacts were very small. It has 300 items on exhibit from the mysterious 6000BC Neolithic Period items to the finely carved pieces from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Qing Dynasty ended in 1911 and was the last one.
The oldest piece I saw was a Neolithic necklace of jade beads of all colors and shapes. There was no apparent effort to make them uniform or match colors. Except for the bell shaped centerpiece and the tubular pieces on either side of it the jade was not carved or decorated in any way. The simplicity of it and the fact that someone 8,000 years ago fashioned it for no useful reason makes it very special. Unless I’m very mistaken live at that time was very uncertain and difficult. That someone would take the time to shape the beads for the mere joy of seeing someone wear it is difficult to grasp.
They have a Chinese knife from 1200BC, a Ge, with a blade of white jade and a bronze heft and handle inlaid with turquoise. The scabbard is made of green jade. The only fully green jade object in the collection is a calligraphy brush holder from 1644, the Qing Dynasty, carved with trees and the figures of 9 old men. It’s gorgeous.
Chinese Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Furniture Gallery obviously has furniture from the last two Chinese Dynasties that spanned over 500 years. Some of this furniture was made before Columbus set out for the New World. The shape of the furniture is very simple and elegant but some of the carving is extremely ornate and exquisite. One screen and stand was simple in shape but made of two different woods and carved deeply and richly. I saw a square table that described as a half table and wonder, “Half of what?” I soon got my answer. The Chinese had a large square table that was designed to be used by 8 people called the Eight Immortals Table. A Half Table is one half of an Immortal’s Table, same width but half as long. The Half Table could be set beside the Immortals Table to make it longer to seat more people. On interesting item was a group of carved wooden figurines with some small furniture models that was found in the grave of Pan Yongzheng. The people and furniture were set up for one of the ceremonies the official had participated in while he was alive. The sign on this display said that they had learned a lot about the furniture and its use by finding these figures.
We had used up most of our time at the museum but we decided that a quick drive-by of the Ancient Chinese Ceramics Gallery was in order. We quickly discovered that a quick drive-by was going to be impossible. The ceramics gallery was three times larger than the other galleries we had visited, so we did the best we could. There were some absolutely beautiful pieces on display. The most interesting to me was a vase from 1723, the Qing Dynasty that was done in white, red and blue. The white is the natural color, the blue was applied as an underglaze and the red added as an overglaze. It has a figure of a large red dragon that circles the entire base of the vase. The blue wave pattern covers the rest of the piece. It’s really pretty.
Our next stop was at the Jade Buddha Temple. It was built in AD 1882 to install the two jade Buddha statues brought back from Burma by a monk. The temple was rebuilt in 1918 and is easily identifiable by its bright saffron walls. The centerpiece is a 6-foot-tall, white jade, seated Buddha, encrusted with jewels. Some 7,000 Buddhist sutras line the walls. This is one of the busiest and most famous working Buddhist temples in the south of China.
We were lucky enough to be here on a Saturday when people visit the city and come to the temple to pray. People pray in the traditional Buddhist way with their hands in the standard palms together position either held directly in front of their face of extended outward and upward to various extents. They then bow up and down as they pray turning to face each of the four cardinal directions. If they really mean business or have an especially important request they can buy incense sticks to hold in their hands as they bow and pray. Some do this by holding a single incense stick the hippies adopted to cover the smell of their ganga. Some buy huge cartons of incense sticks and set them all afire and pray holding the entire burning bundle. I’m not sure if this is to indicate the fervor of their desire or the status of their wealth. Maybe it’s both. There’s a large incense vending location right at the main entrance to the courtyard, the main place of prayer.
There were lots of people praying and there’s no apparent organization or norm involved in where they stand in the courtyard to pray. To my Western eye, after they go to one of the fire pits to set their incense ablaze, they just stop wherever they want to and start bowing and praying. This produces a bit of a hazardous situation. Since the palms of their hands are squeezing the incense and they’re holding their hands in front of or above their face, the burning part of the incense is usually above their heads and consequently comes down at the leading edge when they bow. I saw more than one pack of flaming incense come down on a passerby’s clothing or hair. In one case the impact was so sharp that it extinguished the incense by knocking the burning part completely off the stick. The hapless passerby had a rather sharp pain in his ear and neck and the supplicant had to return to the fire pit to relight. I wonder if this incident has any theological implications. I don’t think so because it’s a pretty common occurrence and a system would have developed to prevent it if it lessened the effectiveness of your worship.
The worshipers come in all ages and sizes, although by Western standards they’d all be considered on the small side. The youngest person I saw with incense was a girl about 8 or so. She was holding a small bundle on incense but only in one hand. Her other hand was over her nose obviously not yet inured to the smoke and smell of the burning offering sticks. The expression on her face clearly said, “What the heck am I doing?” “This is not fun!” The eldest was undeterminable to me but clearly in their 90s or more.
On one side of the courtyard is a temple dedicated to the Four Diva Kings. Inside they have two on each side. These are the same kings that are the guardians in temples both here and in Japan. On the other side is a temple dedicated to another Buddha. Farther back in the complex is the temple of the Jade Buddha. This temple is under strict security. The Jade Buddha is on the second floor and access is tightly controlled. Only so many people are allowed inside at one time and the hold up access until someone leaves. Once inside they tell you to keep moving but you can go very slowly and they don’t seem to mind. No photos are allowed so no one has any reason to totally stop.
The Buddha is white jade and it seems almost translucent. It isn’t, but it gives that impression. It’s very thin for a seated Buddha and long waisted. The jewelry is impressive but detracts a little from the beauty of the statue and its inherent attractiveness. The overall appearance is impressive and very beautiful.
We walked through the complex to the entrance on the opposite side from where we entered. They have a koi pond there with a small bridge over the center. At one end was a many armed figure that appeared to be very Hindu, perhaps Shiva but the Buddhists seemed to be praying there also. Since Buddhism came to China by way on India maybe there’s some Hindu influences at times.
We walked back through the complex to the courtyard where most of the incense burning was taking place. It was still full of worshipers burning hundreds of sticks of incense and the lotus candle table was still full of burning wax lotuses.
Our next stop was at the Sea Palace Floating Restaurant. We sat at large tables for 10 with a huge lazy-susan in the center. They just kept bringing dishes out one at a time until eventually the lazy-susan was totally covered. The food was good but not different from the food you could get in any competent Chinese restaurant in SoCal. I’m sure it was altered because most of the Westerners define Chinese food by what they get in the US and actual Chinese spicing scares them. True to form several of the dishes did not get a fair trial. The whole fried fish, a delicacy to the Chinese, was largely ignored by the tourists because it still had its head and tail. The center of the fish had been cut on either side of the backbone to provide bite sized chunks to serve yourself but only three of the people at our table look any and Diana and I were two of them. It was deep fried and then a sweet and sour sauce was applied to the finished product. It was delicious so the cold reception meant more for me. Yum!!
The other dishes were braised cabbage (very good but not well received either, stir-fried broccoli (spiced with garlic and other unidentifiable spices, delicious but not well received. I was beginning to wonder where these people have been living and why their mothers didn’t give them a decent palate), sweet and sour chicken (people seemed to like that but it was just like you can get anywhere in the states), breaded and fried pork (also good and well received), little black mushrooms (I don’t know what kind they were but they were good and about half the people ate some.), egg flower soup (the most popular and least tasty item they served. Go figure), several other pickled and preserved vegetables that were also good and mostly well received.
The lunch was made from quality ingredients but the preparation was uninspired and not authentic. Bottom line, it was good but if I wanted to eat US Chinese food I would not have traveled all the way to China. Oddly enough, by way of contrast, the Chinese food on the ship is much improved over the past. It’s less US-like and more Chinese, that is to say the spicy dishes are actually mildly spicy now and the taste factor is way up. Much more authentic than the food at this lunch.
After lunch we continued to the New Economic Zone in the Pudong New Area, where we saw the Jin Mao Building and the oddly futuristic Oriental Pearl TV and Radio Tower. It’s the fifth-tallest structure in the world and has become a symbol of the city of Shanghai. Prior to 1990, this area was farmland and rice paddies. Today, it is an urban experiment that is on its way to becoming Asia’s financial, economic and commercial center.
From there we went to the Yuyuan Garden, whose mere five acres are home to more than 40 scenic spots in the inner and outer gardens, following the classical style of the Ming Dynasty. It was a private garden in that dynasty but is now a public park. We entered it by way of the Zigzag Bridge designed to prevent evil spirits from entering the garden. It seems that Chinese evil spirits are not good at corners or steps.
On the way to the garden we passed through Shanghai Old Town, a reconstructed village also in the Ming style. It has restaurants and shops set around small squares and narrow streets. It was very crowded and a very busy place. We stopped at a tea house for a tea demonstration. They served us four teas, one was excellent and another was very good. The remaining two were not to our taste. We bought the first two, a jasmine craft tea that comes in balls that bloom when brewed. I love it but for Diana it was only ok. The second tea was a mildly aged Ginseng Oolong, right in my comfort zone. I loved it and so did Diana. We bought a medium size of each and that gave us a chance to pick a small size tea for free. We went with the Pu’er tea, a health, medicinal type tea that has a taste that may take some getting used to but might prove to be very good.
After that it was back to the ship. After dinner we had a performance by the Ai Fu International Acrobats. They were excellent. Extremely limber and strong.
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