Shanghai: Our Gateway to China

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower has become the iconic signature of modern Shanghai. It symbolizes China's headlong embrace of modernization & capitalism. This is the view across the Huangpu River from the Bund.

Huangpu River Tour Boat

The weather was so vile we passed on taking a river tour. Too bad! The boats are appealing, but look at the upper deck. Empty! Everyone's crowded inside. To me it's not very appealing to cooped up inside and unable to enjoy the spectacular skyline.

The Bund

The word "Bund" means an embankment or an embanked quay. Now a major tourist attraction, Shanghai's Bund has a rich history. You can see some of the historical buildings, lining the Huangpu River, that once housed numerous banks and trading houses from Britain, France, USA, Russia, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands and Belgium, as well as the consulates of Russia and Britain, a newspaper, the Shanghai Club and the Masonic Club. The Bund lies north of the old, walled city of Shanghai. This was initially a British settlement, later the British and American settlements were combined in the International Settlement. For the rest of the story, search for "bund" on Wikipedia.

Busy bazaar by Yuyuan Guardens

As Shanghai was our first stop in China, it was there we first encountered iconic Chinese scenes & things, such as red lanterns (symbolizing good luck), lions (symbolizing power), bicycles, shoulder poles, temples, incense, etcetera, etcetera and so forth.

Guardian Lions

The Chinese are historically infatuated with lions, even though the animals are not native to China. They were thought to have been introduced to the culture as early as AD 87. They can be seen everywhere, guarding homes, banks & businesses. Female lions are identified by having one paw resting on a baby lion. Actually, I'm not sure what the creature on the right is supposed to be. It looks like a lion's head on a horse's body.

Dragon Wall in Yuyuan Gardens

Exquisite Courtyard

Many Dieties

Our guide, Josie, assured us that China allows freedom of religion, and certainly we saw worshippers at all kinds of temples and many representations of diety. However, she never could satisfactorily explain the Chinese government's persecution of Falung Gong.

Budding Musicians at the Children's Palace

Even when you know you're being given a huge dose of propaganda, one can't resist the charm of children. This is a recital given by musically gifted children attending the "Children's Palace of the Arts." They play a variety of European and traditional Asian instruments. We were allowed to explore the school freely.

A Tricycle is Not a Toy

In China, tricycles are serious hard working vehicles.

Pedestrian in the French Concession

Shanghai Museum

Inclement weather forced us inside and happily we chose the Shanghai Museum, one of the finest museums in the world. The superb collection is housed in a stunning building for a memorable experience.

Propaganda Poster Art Centre

Mao commissioned the finest illustrators in China to create propaganda posters glorifying his regime. Thanks to a Lonely Planet guide we found the Propaganda Poster Art Centre in the basement of a bland housing project. It houses a wealth of original posters from that era. I remember the sentiments expressed here well from the Vietnam War era. The poster we purchased is far more artistic than this one.

Shanghai Urban Exhibition Hall

A huge scale model of the ambitious plans to expand modern Shanghai. Of course, if you've seen "An Inconvenient Truth," you know it will all be underwater soon anyway. Three Gorges Dam opponents also believe the dam will rob Shanghai of much-needed silt & Shanghai will sink. Doomsday prophecies have no appreciable effect on the exhuberance of Shanghai city planners, though!

World Famous Chinese Acrobats

I was charmed by the performers, who clearly loved what they were doing and basked in audience appreciation.

Interesting English

One of the joys of foreign travel is finding signs in one's native tongue. Interestingly, the English in these signs is mostly correct--just used differently than native speakers might express themselves. It was reassuring to enter a public toilet in Beijing knowing it had a four-star rating. And talk about multi-tasking--how about that "complaining" and "helping" telephone?

The People's Square in Chongqing

Renmin Hall, where the Communist Party holds its meetings, is in the background.

Chongqing's Ancient City Wall

Like their medieval counterparts in Europe, Chinese cities surrounded themselves with massive walls for defensive purposes. Only about 200 metres of Chongqing's ancient city wall remains, but it's a pretty cool place. We were there early in the morning so happily there weren't many people around. The ancient stones contrast with the modern high rise buildings surrounding the wall.

Defenders Above

Bronze statues commemorating the past are popular features in modern Chinese cities. On the wall an ancient battle is depicted with life-size defenders on the battlements and invaders at the base of the wall.

Invaders Below

The scenes at the foot of the wall are more elaborate, including figures on horseback, archers and other warriors.

Atop The City Wall

People were uniformly gracious about having their picture taken. This lady wasn't as comfortable as others, but she was game!

Dancing is Great Exercise

Women taking their morning constitutional atop the Ancient City Wall. Most people live in very cramped quarters. So they exercise in public places.

The Market

In France you become accustomed to people taking their dogs everywhere with them, but I didn't expect the same devotion in China. This pooch gets a free ride while its mistress (oh, sorry, SF PC police) er, pet guardian, shops for produce. That's a pretty darned big dog to sling over your shoulder & take shopping with you!

Giving a Whole New Meaning to "Meat Market"

The Chicken Weigh-In

Children Are Cherished in China

There is some concern that China's "one-child" policy will produce a generation of selfish, self-centered, over-indulged individuals. Only time will tell. In the cities, children are obviously pampered and adored. We were wandering around Chongqing when these young ladies confronted us. They were clearly pleased with themselves for their boldness. The pleasure was all ours.

Appealing Kids

The little girl in the yellow jacket is peddling roses to tourists. The guy she's talking to finally caved in and bought a rose. The little boy with the "deer in the headlights look" was afraid of me but his family wanted me to take his picture, so I did. He ducked out of sight right after I snapped this shot.

Fore and Aft

About the little boy on the right: we saw children in these open-crotch overalls everywhere. In Chongqing, a gasp of horror arose from our bus when we saw one carefree child relieve himself on the pavement then splash merrily in the resulting puddle.

Bao Lun Temple

"The temple stands near the Jialing River on the Bai Ya mountain and was built in the West Wei Dynasty (535-556). During the Ming Dynasty, emporer Jian Wen, took refuge in this monastary and the monastary became known as 'Dragon concealed temple.'"
http://www.aschwin-prein.nl/AncientTown.html

Red Eaves, Blue Eaves

Incense

Monk at Work

Well, actually he's reading the paper until some work shows up in the form of a tourist wanting admission to the temple.

So-Called "Ancient City"

Most people seemed to be having fun at this tourist trap. According to a local resident, "the Ancient City is just a shopping area but in old buildings. You can find here souvenir shops, restaurants and more souvenir shops." Not my favorite kind of place.

Luring Customers With The Sweet Sound of Music

Candy Dragons

If memory serves correctly this handsome dragon will end up on a stick to be eaten. A rapt crowd watched as it took shape on the marble slab. Liquid sugar looks like a difficult medium, but the woman making the dragon never faltered & created flawless creatures one after another.

Authentic Old Town

To my delight, once you get away from the tourist haunts, there is an authentic Old Town behind the Faux Old Town. Here people don't live in glitzy high-rises; they live in old stone houses. They hang their laundry out the window to dry. They sit in the sun and talk to their neighbors. They looked at me a little curiously as I explored their neighborhood, but didn't seem to mind my being there.

Laundry-Lined Lanes

Observing the quotidian life of ordinary people is one of the greater satisfactions of foreign travel.

Songbirds at an Outdoor Cafe

Boys Will Be Boys

Great expression on the woman's face.

Chatting in the Sunshine

What Sights Have These Eyes Seen?

An old woman sits in the sun, seemingly indifferent to the round-eyed tourist wishing to make a photograph. She has survived the terrible turbulance of Twentieth Century China. The thought of her haunted me long after I left China.

Night Scenes

Chongqing is a huge city of 30 million people so there might be other cool pedestrian malls in the city where people hang out in throngs at night, or this one in the downtown Yuzhog District might just be a showcase. Whatever--most everyone there looked like locals having a great time.

European Eyes

Warning: possible urban legend: The new prosperity in China has resulted in a boom in cosmetic surgery to make eyes more European. We saw a lot of billboards like this one & speculated that the product is cosmetic surgery. If that's not the case, please let me know!

Chongqing From the Zangtze River

Our first day aboard our river cruise boat, the Victoria Katarina, was actually at night. We boarded in the evening and sailed all night. This was our last view of Chonquing, which turned out to be more interesting than I'd expected.

Three Gorges Dam: Monster or Miracle?

The Chinese are proud of this enormous (in every sense of the world) achievement. We saw the dam just a few months before construction was officially completed. Whole books have been written about this controversial dam, so I won't even attempt to address all the pros and cons of building it. It's now a done deal. BTW, it's ironically appropriate that I could't take a decent picture of the dam because of the horrible air pollution. You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to pull out even this much detail in the picture.
For excellent information about all aspects of the dam, and of modern China, go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/asian.superpower/three.gorges/

Locked in Three Gorges Dam

Passage through the 5-stage locks of Three Gorges Dam takes 3-5 hours. Going through at night makes for a very dramatic experience. I love locks. Yes, I have been known to visit locks for their entertainment value. This was by far the coolest dam event of the cruise.

Obligatory Picture of Self With Dam

It's a universal impulse. What can I say?
I really, really hated the Three Gorges Dam. I wanted to see it and I did, but I was not edified by the experience. Dams can be breathtakingly beautiful, like Boulder Dam near Las Vegas, but Three Gorges is heinous. I took a bunch of pictures at the dam itself and at the "scenic" viewpoint, but yuk. They're all ugly.