Shanghai, China

 

The city of Shanghai is massive with nearly 24 million people, which is almost the total population of Australia. It has become a melting pot of people from all over Asia, and thousands of people come to Shanghai each day. The people speak Mandarin Chinese, but the dialects can be quite different from one area to another.

Shanghai is also a very tall city—filled with over 7000 skyscrapers, which includes extremely high apartment buildings. Construction cranes are everywhere, which indicates that it is also an expanding city. The skyline reminds me of the illustrations I saw as a child of what cities of the future would look like with lots of glass skyscrapers in strange shapes.

We were told that the smog levels could affect the arrival time of the ship and views from tall buildings. News programs report about the pollution over parts of China, but until you actually see it, you don’t realize how bad it can be. During the day we were there, the haze or heavy smog never lifted, and the visibility was only about a half-mile. We heard that to live in Shanghai is to live in a place without blue skies or stars at night.

Since so many of the large cities have become very much alike, we opted for a tour that took us to the 2500 year old city of Suzhou, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Shanghai. It is said that Marco Polo was impressed by the bridges and architecture of Suzhou when he visited there in the 13^th century. We wanted to see the ancient side of China before it is swept away for modern buildings.

Our route took us on large motorways filled with traffic and tollbooths. We were surprised to see a number of Chevys, Buicks, and European luxury cars, including Jaguars. Some people are really prospering in Shanghai. Others though are still getting around on motorbikes, without helmets, many times carrying babies and small children. We saw a young teenager riding on a motorbike with a baby in her lap and two toddlers behind her. There appears to be a cottage industry of people who make quilted blankets with built-in hand muffs to cover the hands and laps of the people riding on the bikes. Some of them were quite ornate.

A terrific thing about our tour guide was that she did not gloss over what life is like in China and did not give us the party line. She was quite frank about the conditions and way of life there—without sounding critical. She told us the positive and negatives things. She teaches at a university and conducts tours on the weekend. Her parents had been teachers, and because of that they had been sent to the countryside to be educated by the peasants during the Cultural Revolution. Her mother had written to relatives in another country telling them how poor they were. The letter was intercepted and her parents were put in prison, where her mother died. Our guide also pointed out how things are changing in China for the better.

To learn more about one woman’s experiences imprisoned in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, I highly recommend reading Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Chang. The book group I belong to read the book and then discovered that Nien Chang lived in Washington, D.C. We invited her to have lunch with us, which she graciously did, and we got to hear of her experiences firsthand. She spent six years in prison, much of the time in isolation. She was a remarkable woman who was often interviewed on television by newscasters. Her book is well worth reading.

With the one child policy in China (which was recently changed to two), there are few women for young men to marry. As a result, the women can pick and choose. According to our tour guide, for a man in Shanghai to attract a woman, he must have the five C’s: cash, credit card, car, condo, and career. It’s no wonder that her son went to live in another country.

Our guide described the people as being reserved but friendly, helpful, hard working with an emphasis on teamwork. She said that they don’t show much individuality. If a teacher instructs her class of 30 students to draw a cat and then illustrates what it should look like, every child in the class will draw the cat exactly the way the teacher drew it; whereas, in the west you would get thirty different-looking cats.

During our trip to Suzhou, we passed some interesting sights, including what has to be the world’s largest Ikea store. It was the size of a full city block, if not bigger, and had a parking garage seven stories high. We also saw a Catholic church, which surprised us. Apparently you can practice the religion you want, but the government controls all religious organizations. Our tour guide said that the Chinese like to take aspects of various religions, and they change what aspects they like during different times in their lives.

The Chinese are friendly and are known to ask very personal questions when they meet you. Instead of simply asking how you are, they might ask, “Did you eat?” Not with the intention of offering you anything but just out of curiosity. It probably comes from those times when there wasn’t much to eat. They will often ask how much you make or how old you are.

We were quite surprised to see people smiling and waving to us on the bus and the boat ride we took. I think we took people in the gardens we visited by surprise—seeing so many westerners—and they always gave us big smiles and greetings, which was nice since our reception in some places wasn’t always as warm and friendly—much more reserved.

The ancient Garden City of Suzhou is famous for its silk, rice, gardens, and the canals that flow throughout the city. It is called the Venice of China. Crossing over the canals are 168 stone bridges. We boarded a decorative motorized canal boat and traveled through some narrow canals that had houses on both sides. Our tour guide told us that the houses don’t have gas to cook with or bathrooms, so living in them must be difficult, especially during cold damp days like the one we were experiencing. She said that the people still use chamber pots, which they take to the local public baths to empty. I’m glad they no longer empty them into the canal since some people still wash their dishes in it. Later we entered into a wide canal with parkland on both sides. We left the boat at Pan Gate, the main entrance into the city through the 2500-year-old stonewall that once surrounded it.

Canal Barge

Canal Bridges

We toured the Silk Embroidery Research Institute, which was established to preserve traditional methods of embroidery and to research new techniques. The masters of embroidery are famous for their work, especially their two-sided pieces, which are identical on both sides and done on a sheer piece of silk fabric. These experts embroider both sides at one time using different colors of thread, and without making any knots. Some have different scenes on either side. One had a lion’s head on one side and a leopard on the other side. The sheen of the silk gives the pieces a beautiful luster that couldn’t be achieved with other types of thread. A large hall displayed pieces of the embroidered silks, framed and displayed on ornate mahogany stands. Some of the pieces took a year to complete.

In the same area of Suzhou, we passed a number of factories that manufacture western-style wedding gowns, which are very popular in Asia. In fact, many couples will have a second wedding in a more western fashion, sometimes years after the first wedding when the couples have been able to save enough money.

Silk Embroidery

Our next stop was at The Humble Administrator’s Garden. Built in 1509 during the Ming Dynasty, it is considered to be one of the four finest classical gardens in China. The gardens in China are considered either imperial (built for the emperor) or private or residential gardens. An administrator, who had run afoul of the law, built and named the gardens trying to show his humbleness. It was filled with lakes and buildings with interesting names: the House of Sweet-smelling Rice; the Listening to the Sound of Rain Pavilion; the With Whom Should I Sit Pavilion, and many others. The gardens were intended to bring a sense of peace and serenity, but there were so many people there that we could barely move. We had to walk single file on paths with people coming single file from the other direction. The gardens were quite beautiful even with all the crowds.

The Humble Administrator’s Garden (with a view of the oldest pagoda in China)

Trees and shrubs were starting to bloom, showing that spring was not too far away. However, we still were quite cold, even with several layers of clothing on, including two layers of pants. The colors of the flowering cherry trees, magnolias, and weeping willows added a bit of brightness to the hazy day. We were told that even at the height of summer, the gardens would contain very few flowers.

We stopped at the Wyndham Hotel for a Chinese lunch, which was served family style on large rotating trays. The food was quite good, but I passed on the squid with celery. It was only afterwards that I learned the scrambled egg dish that I tried contained silver fish. Better afterwards than before. I don’t know what silver fish should taste like, but I didn’t detect any.

At the hotel we met some women who were beginning their tour through China on a Viking River cruise up the Yangtze River. I hope the visibility improved as they made their way up the river.

Our long ride back to the ship in bumper-to-bumper traffic gave us lots of time to observe the people, traffic, architecture, etc., and to think about some of the things we had learned. The Chinese are very heavy smokers; many people wear surgical masks to protect their lungs from the pollution; the rest rooms have squatty potties and you must take your own toilet paper; motorbike drivers have a total disregard for traffic rules and even drive on the sidewalks; most of the buildings are a grayish white with dark roofs; and during the day there is very little color except on the numerous tall billboard advertisements. At night some of the buildings are brightly lit, especially in the downtown area of Shanghai.

On the flipside, the people were very pleasant and friendly. They have survived a terrible existence and are seeing things improving for them. Their economy has a 10 percent growth rate and they are making great strides in technology that the western world should look at (high-speed trains that float on magnets). Visiting China was a real adventure and an even bigger eye-opener.