Shanghai, Shanghai
Fuzhou, Fujian, China, July 20
Suzhou (were I arrived July 17) has been a tourist draw for at least 300 years. I'm not sure when the place first became known for its ornamental gardens, but now there are several dozen, and East Asians often spend a week or more visiting them. Being unable to appreciate most of the subtleties, I contented myself with seeing two: the Garden of the Master of the Nets and the Humble Administrator's Garden.
I doubt the garden's designers would entirely appreciate the comparison, but the pleasantly maze-like design of the Garden of the Master of the Nets reminded me of Disneyland's crowd-control techniques. The garden does not cover a large area, but the sightlines are laid out so that you constantly see something new, or see the same things from different perspectives so they look new. My only complaint was not being allowed to go to the second floors of the pagodas, but then I realized that from higher up you'd see over the walls to the surrounding urban sprawl, and (to some extent at least) the illusion would be shattered.
Leaving the garden, I had to run the customary tourist-hawker gauntlet. As with everywhere else, old coins were on offer everywhere. Since China remained on the silver standard even after the major European powers switched to gold, a lot of countries minted special silver coins for the China trade. Also, during the warlord era everybody who ruled even a single province made his own silver dollars. Souvenir stalls everywhere in China have forgeries of these coins available at very reasonable prices. Some of them could be better executed (a Maria Theresa silver dollar from the 1700s should probably not be bright and shiny, and a few times I could see file marks), but most are quite well done, with an appropriate amount of wear. I bought a couple of US trade dollars, bearing dates from the 1870s, for an amount that would have been theft if they were real. Since the seller accepted my price (when I started to walk away), I can assume they're not.
The Humble Administrator's Garden is one of the bigger gardens in Suzhou, about 10 times the size of the Master of the Nets' (but it only looks 3 or 4 times bigger). It has large lotus ponds with huge multicolored carp, and you can get into the upper storeys of the pagodas. There's also a very impressive bonsai exhibit (or whatever the Chinese word for bonsai is).
The Grand Canal goes a couple of miles west of Suzhou, and is a fascinating spectacle in the evening, as boats of all description hurry by to get their owners either home or to the nearest bar or restaurant. I saw boatmen hauling almost everything: pipes and rebar for construction sites, loads of ducks packed in like sardines and hopefully not infected with avian flu, piles of carp and eels slithering over each other, and (this one I smelled long before I saw it) pig manure, the worst-smelling manure in the world. Judging by the sounds and smells of the engines and the number of near-miss collisions I witnessed in only an hour or so, I would advise against getting into the inland waterway insurance business in China.
I was glad to arrive in Shanghai (July 18) fully rested--had I been sleep deprived I'd have found the experience overwhelming, I think. All the cliches say Shanghai is the place to see the massive contradictions that are today's China, and as far as I can tell they're all true. The train station has the most aggressive beggars I've encountered since Istanbul, for one thing. Note to poor Chinese: pulling on my arm hair does not make me more likely to give you money.
It undoubtedly says a lot about me that my first stop in Shanghai (after getting a room and my onward ticket) was the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. I'm a sucker for huge city models, and they have a very nice one, although you only get to look at it from the edges. There are also big displays about the new airport and the container port they're planning to build about 20 miles offshore, connected to the mainland by a bridge. Shanghai will only have a couple of minor Olympic events, but they're planning some kind of World Expo or something for 2010, and the virtual reality flybys of what they say Shanghai will look like by then are very well done, with full 360-degree views.
As with other parts of China, lots of women in Shanghai carry parasols. In addition to keeping off the sun, they are handy in Shanghai because the sidewalks are constantly drizzled on by air-conditioner condensation. It seems like everybody in Shanghai that can afford it has AC, and for some reason they have to let the drippings go onto the sidewalk. I told myself that since it was distilled it was probably the cleanest water I'd encountered in China.
The obligatory walk down the Bund was next, and the old colonial architecture made most of the new buildings across the river look pretty bad. The Oriental Pearl Tower (the thing with the three spheres) was the worst offender--God, it's ugly. Silver, purple, and bare reinforced concrete are just not a good combination. In fact, I would say that reflective purple is a bad enough color on its own (for a building, that is). The tower does look better at night, though.
Most of the Art Deco lobbies are closed, but the ones that are still open were tolerant of tourist gawkers.
Rather than take an evening cruise, I saw the Shanghai Acrobatic Theater, which was astounding and which you must see if you get the chance. One of the most impressive aspects was that they weren't able to do everything right on the first try. A few times they'd come close but not quite get it (e.g. send only 2 instead of 3 people jumping through stacked rotating rings at the same time), and they'd set up again and get on the second attempt. China is expected to get at least 80% of the gymnastics gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, and it's not hard to see why.
For my final stop of the evening, I went to the Cloud 9 bar at the Grand Hyatt (it's on the 87th floor, with corresponding views). There is a $15 drink minimum to visit, which I would have been happy to pay, but it turned out that (a) the only beer they had on tap was Budweiser, and (b) they didn't bring me a drink menu for at least three minutes after I asked for one. So I ate some peanuts, walked around to see the city from all sides, and left. An awesome location is no excuse for bad customer service, I say.
The train ride to Fuzhou takes 24 hours (sleeper car this time), because it doesn't go in a very direct line. The rice paddies are almost done with the first crop of the year, and are a beautiful shade of green. The landscape can switch from pastoral to high-tech instantly, rather like some parts of northern Indiana. Perversely, the pervasive air pollution makes the surrounding hills look softer and more inviting, like in an old Chinese painting.
I'm not planning to spend very long in Fuzhou, but if I can I'll sample the local specialty, "Buddha Leaps Over the Wall." This is a marinade of about 50 different types of vegetables and seafood, so named because even an ascetic vegetarian would jump over a wall to get some. After that, an all-night bus ride to Guangzhou, and I'll cross into Macao on the 22nd, which is the day before my visa expires.
Suzhou (were I arrived July 17) has been a tourist draw for at least 300 years. I'm not sure when the place first became known for its ornamental gardens, but now there are several dozen, and East Asians often spend a week or more visiting them. Being unable to appreciate most of the subtleties, I contented myself with seeing two: the Garden of the Master of the Nets and the Humble Administrator's Garden.
I doubt the garden's designers would entirely appreciate the comparison, but the pleasantly maze-like design of the Garden of the Master of the Nets reminded me of Disneyland's crowd-control techniques. The garden does not cover a large area, but the sightlines are laid out so that you constantly see something new, or see the same things from different perspectives so they look new. My only complaint was not being allowed to go to the second floors of the pagodas, but then I realized that from higher up you'd see over the walls to the surrounding urban sprawl, and (to some extent at least) the illusion would be shattered.
Leaving the garden, I had to run the customary tourist-hawker gauntlet. As with everywhere else, old coins were on offer everywhere. Since China remained on the silver standard even after the major European powers switched to gold, a lot of countries minted special silver coins for the China trade. Also, during the warlord era everybody who ruled even a single province made his own silver dollars. Souvenir stalls everywhere in China have forgeries of these coins available at very reasonable prices. Some of them could be better executed (a Maria Theresa silver dollar from the 1700s should probably not be bright and shiny, and a few times I could see file marks), but most are quite well done, with an appropriate amount of wear. I bought a couple of US trade dollars, bearing dates from the 1870s, for an amount that would have been theft if they were real. Since the seller accepted my price (when I started to walk away), I can assume they're not.
The Humble Administrator's Garden is one of the bigger gardens in Suzhou, about 10 times the size of the Master of the Nets' (but it only looks 3 or 4 times bigger). It has large lotus ponds with huge multicolored carp, and you can get into the upper storeys of the pagodas. There's also a very impressive bonsai exhibit (or whatever the Chinese word for bonsai is).
The Grand Canal goes a couple of miles west of Suzhou, and is a fascinating spectacle in the evening, as boats of all description hurry by to get their owners either home or to the nearest bar or restaurant. I saw boatmen hauling almost everything: pipes and rebar for construction sites, loads of ducks packed in like sardines and hopefully not infected with avian flu, piles of carp and eels slithering over each other, and (this one I smelled long before I saw it) pig manure, the worst-smelling manure in the world. Judging by the sounds and smells of the engines and the number of near-miss collisions I witnessed in only an hour or so, I would advise against getting into the inland waterway insurance business in China.
I was glad to arrive in Shanghai (July 18) fully rested--had I been sleep deprived I'd have found the experience overwhelming, I think. All the cliches say Shanghai is the place to see the massive contradictions that are today's China, and as far as I can tell they're all true. The train station has the most aggressive beggars I've encountered since Istanbul, for one thing. Note to poor Chinese: pulling on my arm hair does not make me more likely to give you money.
It undoubtedly says a lot about me that my first stop in Shanghai (after getting a room and my onward ticket) was the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. I'm a sucker for huge city models, and they have a very nice one, although you only get to look at it from the edges. There are also big displays about the new airport and the container port they're planning to build about 20 miles offshore, connected to the mainland by a bridge. Shanghai will only have a couple of minor Olympic events, but they're planning some kind of World Expo or something for 2010, and the virtual reality flybys of what they say Shanghai will look like by then are very well done, with full 360-degree views.
As with other parts of China, lots of women in Shanghai carry parasols. In addition to keeping off the sun, they are handy in Shanghai because the sidewalks are constantly drizzled on by air-conditioner condensation. It seems like everybody in Shanghai that can afford it has AC, and for some reason they have to let the drippings go onto the sidewalk. I told myself that since it was distilled it was probably the cleanest water I'd encountered in China.
The obligatory walk down the Bund was next, and the old colonial architecture made most of the new buildings across the river look pretty bad. The Oriental Pearl Tower (the thing with the three spheres) was the worst offender--God, it's ugly. Silver, purple, and bare reinforced concrete are just not a good combination. In fact, I would say that reflective purple is a bad enough color on its own (for a building, that is). The tower does look better at night, though.
Most of the Art Deco lobbies are closed, but the ones that are still open were tolerant of tourist gawkers.
Rather than take an evening cruise, I saw the Shanghai Acrobatic Theater, which was astounding and which you must see if you get the chance. One of the most impressive aspects was that they weren't able to do everything right on the first try. A few times they'd come close but not quite get it (e.g. send only 2 instead of 3 people jumping through stacked rotating rings at the same time), and they'd set up again and get on the second attempt. China is expected to get at least 80% of the gymnastics gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, and it's not hard to see why.
For my final stop of the evening, I went to the Cloud 9 bar at the Grand Hyatt (it's on the 87th floor, with corresponding views). There is a $15 drink minimum to visit, which I would have been happy to pay, but it turned out that (a) the only beer they had on tap was Budweiser, and (b) they didn't bring me a drink menu for at least three minutes after I asked for one. So I ate some peanuts, walked around to see the city from all sides, and left. An awesome location is no excuse for bad customer service, I say.
The train ride to Fuzhou takes 24 hours (sleeper car this time), because it doesn't go in a very direct line. The rice paddies are almost done with the first crop of the year, and are a beautiful shade of green. The landscape can switch from pastoral to high-tech instantly, rather like some parts of northern Indiana. Perversely, the pervasive air pollution makes the surrounding hills look softer and more inviting, like in an old Chinese painting.
I'm not planning to spend very long in Fuzhou, but if I can I'll sample the local specialty, "Buddha Leaps Over the Wall." This is a marinade of about 50 different types of vegetables and seafood, so named because even an ascetic vegetarian would jump over a wall to get some. After that, an all-night bus ride to Guangzhou, and I'll cross into Macao on the 22nd, which is the day before my visa expires.
posted by Pijus | 12:41 PM
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